The Holbrook news., 1911-07-07

growers in the French cham
 pagne region, which culmina-
 ted in violent disturbances and
 the destruction of enormous quantities of champagne, was the re- suit of the suffering of the people in the Department of Marne which the wine growers there attributed to the extensive manufacture of adulterated and counterfeited wine.
 To protect the growers of real champagne the French government in 1907 instituted an investigation. As the result of years work of the in- vestigating committee the govern ment secured the passage of law which provided an official label for real champagne and requiring that no wine should bear this label unless it were wholly the production of spe- cific district-a region within the linn its of the Department of Marne.
 From the start the law delimiting the champagne country was unpopu- lar, there being numerous complaints that it was not rigidly enforced. Dis satisfaction led to meetings of pro test, the wine growers asserting that wine was imported into Marne where 1t was bottled and marked with the government label. Counter-demon- strations were begun in the Depart ment of Aube, where the wine grow CTS clamored to have their department included in the delimited champagne district.
 Taking cognizance of the Aube growers the French senate, after a long discussion, adopted resolution April Il in favor of the suppression of all territorial delimitation. As soon as the news of the senate's action reached the Marne region, where it was regarded as a deadly blow to their interests and a concession to the rival and neighboring Department of Aube, the exasperated Marne wine growers rose in arms and burned and sacked every Aube wine depot they could reach.
 Rheims and Epernay, in the Depart ment of Marne, are the centers of the champagne trade. Each town Is about two hours by rail southwest of Paris. The department covers only about forty thousand acres. This depart ment lies in the old Province of Champagne, from which the wine takes it's name.
 The soil is of a chalky formation that retains the suns heat and pre- vents heavy dews, thus giving the grape fine chance to mature. The rolling hill country provides a good natural drainage, and there Is about the same yield year after year with out any necessity for enriching or re- newing the soil. The vines are grown on small poles and are cut back every second or third year. In June, for miles around, one gets the fragrant odor of the young grape blossoms; :; and in October, in the vintage season, masses of small purple and white grapes, heaped in profusion every where, are a picturesque sight.
 The wine is stored in immense caves in Rheims and at Epernay, 16 miles distant. Some of the caves ex- tend for miles under the city, and parts of Rheims are literally honey combed. Often the caves are three stories deep, so as to vary the tenn perature. One descends to them by a splendid flight of 116 steps cut out of the chalk soil. The caves are more than ten miles long and are constant ly being added to. There are about two hundred large rooms in them, and some of the corridors are more than a quarter of mile in length.
 It is not unusual to have as much as 19,00O,00O to 14.00O,0O0 bottles stored in these cellars at one time. The wine cellars everywhere are as spotlessly clean and fresh as a New England housekeeper's kitchen. In several rooms fine bas-reliefs are sculptured in the chalk.
 The workmen are all well paid; and each receives, besides, a bottle of red wine in the morning and another in the afternoon, to keep the blood warm while working beneath the earth, as they do most of the day.
 Before the cork was discovered real champagne did not exist. Without it no sparkling wine could be brought to perfection, requiring. as It does, the peculiar process of fermentation after being bottled.
 Only the juice from the first press ing of the grape Is for champagne, the second and third pressings being left for inferior wine. The juice remains in these vats from October until Jan uary, when the mixing takes place. This Is a secret in each establishment. as each wine-master has his own