Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines | Page 8

Henry Vizetelly
fame it has acquired from having been the cradle of the sparkling vintage of the Champagne.
It was in the budding springtime when we made our pilgrimage to Hautvillers across the swollen waters of the Marne at Epernay. Our way lay for a time along a straight level poplar-bordered road, with verdant meadows on either hand, then diverged sharply to the left and we commenced ascending the vine-clad hills, on a narrow plateau of which the church and abbey remains are picturesquely perched. Vines climb the undulating slopes to the summit of the plateau, and wooded heights rise up beyond, affording shelter from the bleak winds sweeping over from the north. As we near the village of Hautvillers we notice on our left hand a couple of isolated buildings overlooking a small ravine with their bright tiled roofs flashing in the sunlight. These prove to be a branch establishment of Messrs. Charles Farre and Co., a well-known champagne firm having its head-quarters at Reims. The grassy space beyond, dotted over with low stone shafts giving light and ventilation to the cellars beneath, is alive with workmen unloading waggons densely packed with new champagne bottles, while under a neighbouring shed is a crowd of women actively engaged in washing the bottles as they are brought to them. The large apartment aboveground, known as the cellier, contains wine in cask already blended, and to bottle which preparations are now being made. On descending into the cellars, which, excavated in the chalk and of regular construction, comprise a series of long, lofty, and well-ventilated galleries, we find them stocked with bottles of fine wine reposing in huge compact piles ready for transport to the head establishment, where they will undergo their final manipulation. The cellars consist of two stories, the lowermost of which has an iron gate communicating with the ravine already mentioned. On passing out here and looking up behind we see the buildings perched some hundred feet above us, hemmed in on every side with budding vines.
[Illustration: THE PORTE DES PRESSOIRS, HAUTVILLERS.]
The church of Hautvillers and the remains of the neighbouring abbey are situated at the farther extremity of the village, at the end of its one long street, named, pertinently enough, the Rue de Bacchus. Passing through an unpretentious gateway we find ourselves in a spacious courtyard, bounded by buildings somewhat complex in character. On our right rises the tower of the church with the remains of the old cloisters, now walled-in and lighted by small square windows, and propped up by heavy buttresses. To the left stands the residence of the bailiff, and beyond it an 18th-century chateau on the site of the abbot's house, the abbey precincts being bounded on this side by a picturesque gateway tower leading to the vineyards, and known as the "porte des pressoirs," from its contiguity to the existing wine-presses. Huge barn-like buildings, stables, and cart-sheds inclose the court on its remaining sides, and roaming about are numerous live stock, indicating that what remains of the once-famous royal abbey of St. Peter has degenerated into an ordinary farm. To-day the abbey buildings and certain of its lands are the property of Messrs. Mo?t and Chandon, the great champagne manufacturers of Epernay, who maintain them as a farm, keeping some six-and-thirty cows there with the object of securing the necessary manure for the numerous vineyards which they own hereabouts.
[Illustration]
The dilapidated cloisters, littered with old casks, farm implements, and the like, preserve ample traces of their former architectural character, and the Louis Quatorze gateway on the northern side of the inclosure still displays above its arch a grandiose carved shield, with surrounding palm-branches and half-obliterated bearings. Vine-leaves and bunches of grapes decorate some of the more ancient columns inside the church, and grotesque medi?val monsters, such as monkish architects habitually delighted in, entwine themselves around the capitals of others. The stalls of the choir are elaborately carved with cherubs' heads, medallions and figures of saints, cupids supporting shields, and free and graceful arabesques of the epoch of the Renaissance. In the chancel, close by the altar steps, are a couple of black marble slabs, with Latin inscriptions of dubious orthography, the one to Johannes Royer, who died in 1527, and the other setting forth the virtues and merits of Dom Petrus Perignon, the discoverer of champagne. In the central aisle a similar slab marks the resting-place of Dom Thedoricus Ruynart--obit 1709--an ancestor of the Reims Ruinarts, and little square stones interspersed among the tiles with which the side aisles of the church are paved record the deaths of other members of the Benedictine brotherhood during the 17th and 18th centuries. Several large pictures grace the walls of the church, the most interesting one representing St. Nivard, Bishop of Reims, and his friend, St. Berchier, designating to
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