The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1901-07-13
Workers in Wine Vaults.
From London I t-Bits.

From London t-Bits-
Even to the nonbibulous there is SOME
thing novel and impressive in the spectacle
of vast underground world s'peopled'
with millions Of bottles Of champagne, on
the contents Of which fleet might float,
and where thousands of pounds worth OF
wine run in the cutters as little regarded
as so much water.
These underground temples of Bac-
chus' are seen at their best under the old
world town of Epernay or he Roman arch
itecture of Rheims, where the corridors,
hewn out of the solid rock, stretch IN all
directions for miles and where the floors
descend one below another, like the differ
ent levels of mine, to depth of 14O feet.
Along these miles of corridors are stacked
hundreds of thousands of bottles Of wine
undergoing the processes of refining and
maturing, and walk along them may be
as fraught with danger as to cross the line
Of fire in battle, for at any moment
bottle may burst and hurl its fragments at
YOU with something of the force OF shrap-
nell
Into these vaults hundreds Of workmen
disappear at O clock every morning, only
to emerge into the upper air II hours later
Unfortunately, the conditions that are best
for the wine are almost as uncomfortable
as one could conceive for the human popu-
lation of the vaults. All the year round,
whether in the height Of summer or the
form ffIrQ n
As degrees must be maintained, and the air
is so saturated with moisture that it runs
in rivulets down the walls, and the screens
which separate the cellars are heavy with It,
In the damp, dark corridors behind these
screens are men whose sole duty it is to
turn the thousands of bottles, one by one,
and give them slight shake, SO as to dis
lodge any sediment that has formed, and
this process, probably the most monotonous
and under the conditions of cold, moisture
and darkness the most dreary that falls to
the lot of workingman, is repeated hour
after hour aud day after day for whole
lifetime.
An expert worker will turn as many as
so bottles minute and maintain this rate
for ten hours day, handling 36, 600 bot
ties in a days work Is it any wonder
that after years of this monotonous druid
gerry these men develop all kinds Of strange
moods and fancies They become gloomy
and taciturn and get the strangest ideas into
their heads. Some of them persist that
the vaults are haunted and profess to see
eyes glaring at them from obscure corners
and figures fitting past them, possibly the
ewes of men who have turned bottles before
them and cannot refrain from revisiting the
haunts Of their earthly days.
But naturally all the work in these un-
dereround worlds of Bacchus is not OF this
lugubrious description, for here small
army of men and girls are engaged in cork
ing, putting on the tin foil which makes
the bottles 50 pleasing to the eye and label
ing.
The corking is done at the almost in
credible rate of 100 bottles an hour. The
bottles are handed in rapid succession by a
boy to the ''disgorger, who with marvel
Gus dexterity whisks out the corks, dis
charging any sediment that may have col
lected, fills them up with champagne and
passes them on to the corker. The cork
ing has for many years been done by ma
chinery, the machine Selling the cork,
COMPRISING it to the proper size and push
ing it into the neck Of the bottle. The
bottles are then ready for the girls, who
put on the finishing touches with tin foil
and labels.
As may be expected, these processes,
especially that of disgorging, are not free
from danger, for at this stage bottle of
champagne may be as risky thing to
handle as live bomb, and accidents more
or less severe are fairly common. 1t is es
timated that at Rheims alone f10, 900
worth of champagne is wasted every year
through the bursting of bottles.
Although these hundreds and thousands
of workmen are allowed a practically un >
limited supply of ordinary wine, some Of
them drinking as many as three bottles
day, it is remarkable that drunkenness is
almost unknown among them.