The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-10-10
IN THE CHAMPAGNE FIELDS.
Some Idea of the Productiveness of
EpernaY District.
From the London Times.

From the London Times.
The quantity of wine shipped or sent off
from Rheims and Epernay is almost incred-
IDLE. We hear great deal of nonsense on
this point. We are graYely told that more
champagne is drunk in Russia alone that
all the vineyards in France put together
could suppy-the fact being That it is very
difficult to smuggle champagne into Russia,
that every bottle pays a duty of francs to
the Russian government, and so the precise
number of bottles imported is known, and
the quantity is a mere fraction of what IS
sent from the district. England and Amer
lea are much larger consumers than Russia,
the home consumption in France is large,
and so is the export to Ger
many, Italy, India and the col
onles. But the supply is equal to
even larger demand. The average export
from one house alone at Rheims, and of
high-class wines alone, averages 100000
bottles. No other house may have quite so
large business es this, but there are many
other well known houses where the exports
are very large, and il IS a matter not OF
guess work, but of careful calculation,
founded upon official returns and the col
lection of revenue, upon the manufacture
or botle les, the supply of corks, railway re-
turns and similar facts, by which a toler-
ably close approximation to the truth may
be ascertaiued, when it is believed that at
least y, 100, 900 bottles are now exported or
are sent from tho champagne district for
home consumption every year. The guam
tity has fully doubled in the last twenty
years, or from 10, 472 049 bottles in 1859
to e, 334 1924 bottles in 1SS1-SS; the exports
having been II, PSI ,6S4 and the home con-
sumption 3,076,639 These are the STA
tistics furnished by tho Rheims chamber of
commerce.
When the visitor walks around one of the
vineyards which cover the slopes of the
hills along the banks of the Marine, and is
told that the land varies in value from $500
up to II 200 an acre, that the expenses of
manuring and cultivation on a yearly aver
age amount TO from e35 to e45 sterling;
that in some years the crops are scanty or
poor; that only about once in five years is
the crop full aud fine, and then when oEe
reflects upon the cost of burrowing out the
cellars from the solid chalk and of the ex-
penses in the wine pressing, of the cost of
the casks and watts, of the BOTTLES, corks and
wire, of the labor in the bottlng and dis
gorging. of the loss of interest
on capital while the wine is
bottles, one wonders not that good
champagne, after paying duty and
carriage to England, should cost
10 shillings or 12 shillings a bottle,
but that it should leave profit to the pro-
ducer even at that price. And when it is
known that really CORD, pure wne-not
of a choice or fanclful vintage and of the
brand of well-known or first-class house,
but real. genuine, wholesome, pleasant
wine-can be supplied at profit from Ep-
ernay and bought In London for half
crown bottle, even now that the addi-
tional five shIllings dozen is paid upon i'm
ported champagnes, one is lost in astonish-
ment as to how it can be done. Some peo-
pie say it cannot be done, that such cheap
stuff must be sort of gingerbeer or zoe
done. But visit to the champagne district
dispeIs the doubt.