The herald., 1896-07-05

varying tastes of its consumers, for even
the grossest palate could not drink the
wine in it's then condition, notwithstand-
ing what some English wine merchants
who discourse learnedly upon what they
are pleased to call the beauties OF nat
ural champagne" tell us to the contrary.
Dosage, the last act in the drama of
champagne manufacture. is a most i'm
portant one in the eyes of the viticultur-
ist, for the reputa ton of his brand main
ly depends upon the skill and care with
which he accomplishes it, seeing that, as
just said, it is the converting an unpalat-
able sour liquid into a pleasant bever-
age.
The dosage of inferior kinds of cham
pagne is attended with little difficulty.
from the fact that all that unrefined pal
ates care for in sparkling wine Is alco-
holic strength and effervescent sharp
ness-two qualities that can be given to
the poorest champagnes with but little
trouble or expense. What makes the
dosage of high class champagnes so ex-
tremely difficult is the fact that the cog
noscente apprises the merits of his
sparkling wine less by it's alcohol and
its ''fizz" than by its softness and bou-
quet two combined qualities that can
not be artificially given to poor wine,
manipulate it as you may, and can yet
be readily destroyed in a fine wine by
the addition of either too much or too
little dosage liqucr.
Nationality is most important fac
tor in determining the amount of dosage,
for the quantity of liqueur added must
be regulated according to the country to
which the wine is exported, champagne
drinkers in different parts of the world
demanding entirely different dosaged
wines.
AS Russians, Prussians', Frenchmen's s
and Englishmen's champagnes all come
out of the same watts, the difference in
their flavors is solely due to the dosage
liqueur of the viticulturalist. To give an
idea of this it may be mentioned that,
while the finest champagnes drunk in
France have per cent of it added to the
vim brut Immediately after degorge-
ment that for Russia has from IA to 16;
for Prussia, from II to 13; for America,
from to 10: and for England. from to
4. This extremely low percentage for
Britain is a thing of quite recent date,
however, for up till about the Cos the best
champagnes imported into England re-
ceived exactly the same amount of dos
age liqueur as the best consumed in
France-namely s per cent. And at that
time these were spoken of as dry wines,
for dry they assuredly were in compare
son with the sweet PruSSian and Rus
sian varities.
The word dry, when applfed TO
wines. is misnomer as it simply I'M
plies that the wine contains but little
saccharine matter Port wine. for exam
pie becomes dry in this sense by keeping
it from twenty, thirty or forty years; for
in that time the greater part of the sugar
it originally contained has become
transformed into alcohol. Hence, what
it has lost in sweetness it has gained in
alcoholic strength, and not only so but
likewise in flavor; for by age are devel-
oped the fine aromatic ethers which give
old wines their exquisite vinous f1avors.
THE AGE OF CHAMPAGNE.
The next point meriting attention is
the widely spread though erroneous no
ton that no champagne will keep good
for more than fifteen years. and that it
is at its best between seven and ten.
Both ideas are false in as far as the
higher classes of champagne are con-
cerned. For we know, from personal ex-
perience, that Perrier Jouet's cabinet
champagne" of 1857 not only remained
perfectly sound, but improved in flavor
for no less period than thirty five years.
though some Of the bottles were by that
time nearly half empty from ullage, and
their iron wires and silver foil had all
rotted away, the corks being held in only
by the strings. And what is more, the
wine in the most ullaged bottles not
only effervesced as briskly, but tasted
as nice as that in the full ones.
Another equally popular erroneous no.
tion is that champagne becomes sweeter