Howard Reed

“ Let their fears be calmed by the fact, that the peasants in and about these vineyards dance and sing all day long but are never drunk. Cheap wines will surely be more effective than Total Abstinence Pledges, and, Christian though I am, I very much incline to the idea of a heathen poet, who has elegantly represented wine as a recompense given by the deities for the misery brought upon mankind by the general deluge. Fill, then, a bumper from the taper-necked bottle, and let us drink to the future vintage of the Marne. ”

“ The water-mills on the Marne are always going, to supply Paris with flour, and the land around is productive. The dairymaids make a very delicious cheese, called fromage de Brie. Rattling through the tunnel of Armentière, we pass La Ferté-sans-Jouarre, celebrated for the best millstones in the world, cut out of a silicious rock known as Burr stone, forming the uppermost stratum of the fresh-water basin in which Paris is situated. ”

“ Being in bottle, a third fermentation is induced by putting into each bottle a small glass of what is called liqueur—sugar-candy dissolved in wine, and fined to brightness. “This fermentation produces a fresh deposit of sediment. In this process the greatest attention is requisite, and the bottles are closely watched, the temperature of the air carefully regulated to promote or check the fermentation; yet thousands of bottles explode; so many, that 10 per cent. is always charged as a cost of manufacture.” ”