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<< previous...We visited the pressoir of the principal producer of vin brut at Ay, who, although the owner of merely five hectares, or about twelve and a half acres of vines, expected to make as many as 1,500 pièces of wine that year, mainly of course from grapes purchased from other growers. One peculiarity of the Champagne district is that, contrary to the prevailing practice in the other wine-producing regions of France, where the owner of even a single acre of vines will crush his grapes himself, only a limited number of vine-proprietors press their own grapes. The large champagne houses, possessing vineyards, always have their pressoirs in the neighbourhood, and other large vine-proprietors will press the grapes they grow, but the multitude of small cultivators invariably sell the produce of their vineyards to one or other of the former at a certain rate, either by weight or else per caque, a measure estimated to hold sixty kilogrammes (equal to 132lbs.) of grapes. The price which the fruit fetches varies of course according to the quality of the vintage and the requirements of the manufacturers. In 1873, in all the higher-class vineyards, as much as two francs and a quarter per kilogramme (10d. per lb.) were paid, or between treble and quadruple the average price. And yet the vintage was a most unsatisfactory one owing to the deficiency of sun and abundance of wet throughout the summer. The market, however, was in great need of wine, and the fruit while still ungathered was bought up at most exorbitant prices by the spéculateurs who supply the vin brut to the champagne manufacturers.

Carts laden with grapes were continually arriving at the pressoir, and after discharging their loads, and having them weighed, kept driving off for fresh ones. Four powerful presses of recent invention, each worked by a large fly-wheel requiring four sturdy men to turn it, were in operation. The grapes were spread over the floor of the press in a compact mass, and on being subjected to pressure—again and again repeated, the first squeeze only giving a high-class wine—the must filtered through a wicker basket into the reservoir beneath, whence, after remaining a certain time to allow of its ridding itself of the grosser lees, it is pumped through a gutta-percha tube into the casks. The wooden stoppers of the bungholes, instead of being fixed tightly in the apertures, are simply laid over them, and after the lapse of ten or twelve days fermentation usually commences, and during its progress the must, which is originally of a pale pink tint, fades to a light straw colour. The wine usually remains undisturbed until Christmas, when it is drawn off into fresh casks, and delivered to the purchaser.... next >>