Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines | Page 8

quality of champagne. The quaint
old church, scraps of which date back to the 12th century, the remnants
of the cloisters, and a couple of ancient gateways, marking the limits of
the abbey precincts, are all that remain to testify to the grandeur of its
past. It was the proud boast of the brotherhood that it had given nine
archbishops to the see of Reims, and two-and-twenty abbots to various
celebrated monasteries, but this pales beside the enduring 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 château 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. Moët 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 mediæval 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