Professor S. D. Gross always spoke of champagne as a "drink for the gods," and it was his custom, when he came home weary and tired out from hard work, to open a pint bottle of Mumm's Extra Dry, and sit down and enjoy it. While champagne is undoubtedly a "drink for the gods," for the gouty individual or for the diabetic it is an invention of the devil. For the delicate or for the weary valetudinarian it is a generous and acceptable tonic, and as old age comes over us, provided there is no contraindication, it is here that alcohol in some form is so acceptable, and champagne becomes a remedy par excellence. Owing to the carbonic acid it contains, it is a rapid stimulant, and is rapidly and completely absorbed, and this quality makes it of great use in so many of the acute diseases where we need rapid action and where the digestive processes need just the spurring up that the carbonic acid and alcohol give. In acute croupous pneumonia confine me to one remedy, and I believe I would choose champagne.

There are true champagnes, "Vin Brut," as the French call it, wine made without any artificial additions whatever, and fermented absolutely in the bottle. Then there are the ordinary champagnes, where the maker hurries up the acetous fermentation, by which all of the sugar is quickly converted into alcohol. This is done by adding from 4 to 8 per cent. of sugar. Four per cent. makes the wine more rapidly, and it is ready to sell sooner, but if it is to be a dry wine, it is dry because of the acetic acid in it, and not because the sugar has gone to alcohol naturally. Here, then, is the distinction between "Vin Brut" and a sec or dry wine, or extra dry. We get probably little "Vin Brut" in the United States, but we get plenty of dry and extra dry. Good sec (dry) or extra dry (tres sec) can be bought for from twenty-five to thirty-six dollars per dozen in this country, while true Brut, if of a fashionable vintage, will sell for one hundred dollars per dozen, or more, and is usually imported by the consumer.

The "Vin Brut" of Ruinart Pere et Fils, Rheims, France, is a good wine. It is a sound, decidedly dry wine. At the price it is sold for in the general trade I can scarcely see how it can be a true Brut wine. Brut wine is also offered by Moet et Chandon as Brut Imperial, together with their White Seal. Their Green Seal wine was formerly popular. Piper-Hiedsieck also offer a Brut extra. The genuine Hiedsieck wines are among the best. Pommery and Greno Sec is another of the good brands, and so are the Veuve Cliquot. Many of these are sweet. The wines of the house of G. H. Mumm & Co. are usually good wines, and are especially well corked and well put up.

The following are good brands, Louis Roederer, De St. Marceaux & Co., and Ayala & Co.

The so-called vintage champagnes are usually high in price among dealers, say forty-five to fifty dollars per dozen. Among the good years are: 1889, 1892, 1893, 1895, 1898, and 1900 for French wines.

After these wines come champagnes of many kinds and sorts, until you reach the vile stuff with sugar and any alcoholic mixture for a base, with carbon dioxide forced into it in soda-water style. I will not speak of our domestic champagnes until I come to speak of our domestic wines in general. Artificial champagnes, as a rule, besides being vile mixtures, are heady; that is to say, the carbonic acid goes rapidly to the head and produces an unpleasant fullness, different from that produced by alcohol alone.

God help the man who drinks too much at one time of the best champagne! It is a sickening dose, but if the stuff is artificial, do not mention the great misery which overcomes him.

Sparkling Moselle is a fairly good light wine, and if it can be obtained it can be recommended for the sick when such a wine is needed.

The making of good champagne is a tedious and expensive process, and consists of vatting, curing, bottling, racking, disgorging, and handling. The bottles must be of the best, and even then 15 per cent. are broken in the process. I remember having seen men testing bottles by the eye and by the hands, in the famous cellars of Moet et Chandon, Epernay, France. The only wonder to me was, they did not all fly to pieces in the mere testing. The slightest bubble in the glass condemned the bottle. All champagne bottles are made in clay moulds, and have no mould-marks on them. These bottles must stand a pressure of one hundred pounds to the square inch, thus reaching near the point of an explosive, although not a high one. This is in the first fermentation. The bottles must really stand a pressure of twenty atmospheres, or three hundred pounds to the square inch.

Champagne is a blended wine. The Cuvee, literally a vat, is the mixture or blend of the wine from which the champagne is to be made. The cuvee is the most important part of the work of making champagne, and requires great experience and tact. It is necessary to ascertain the exact proportion of alcohol, sugar, and acid, or the mousse or sparkle will be too violent, or not violent enough. The blend of the wine gives the color, lightness, its sweetness or dryness, and the strength, in a great measure.

Now the corking is done by machinery, and it is an interesting process. Formerly, string and wire both were used to hold the corks; now much wine is tied by wire alone. After the bottles have been filled, they are tied with one string, and are then kept at a temperature of about 8o° F. for several months. During this time the albumin and natural sediment of the wine go to the lower side, the bottles having been kept on their sides. At the end of several months the carbon dioxide has formed, and probably 10 per cent. of the bottles have exploded, yet the wine is not always lost, but is caught in gutters and used sooner or later.

After fermentation has gone on for months the bottles are put in racks and turned every day for several months. This brings the sediment down to the neck, the racks holding the bottles cork down. After this the bottles are stood perpendicularly on their corks. All champagne bottles have their bottoms pushed up into a cone, as is well known. This is not, as is generally supposed, to reduce the contents in quantity, but is necessary for the strength of the bottle. After fermentation has been completed the sediment must be gotten rid of, technically called disgorgement. A man does this very expertly, and loses very little of the wine. He wears a wire mask, as do all who enter the champagne vaults during the cure of the wine. If the wine is to be helped, and is not absolutely natural, or brut, as soon as the disgorger has finished, another man puts in the proper amount of syrup, and thus arranges for the dryness or sweetness of the wine. The syrup is cold process syrup only, made with grape sugar, and may have some flavoring added, but this is really not proper. If too much wine has been lost in disgorging, more is added, and the waste goes off into some by-product, as vinegar. Nothing is wasted. After the wine has been corked and wired it is put away for probably a year in the cellars, and is then ready for labelling and packing.

I think there is a difference of opinion as to the improvement or non-improvement of champagne by age. If it can be kept absolutely quiet and airtight, and with a proper environment, it may improve by age, certainly, at least, until all of the sugar has been converted into alcohol, the wine then becoming as dry as it can ever be. The life of the cork must measure the life of the wine, and this is probably not over five or six years on an average.

France makes most of the champagne for the world, and the true champagne district cannot supply grapes sufficient for one-tenth, probably, of what France exports. Fortunately, there are other places which furnish grapes for good champagne, and this wine is utilized.

Champagne is supposed to have been invented by monks, and resulted from the bottling of new wine and its exploding the bottles while undergoing fermentation. The true champagne country of France is the department of the Marne, east of Paris, and which one passes through in travelling from Paris to Strasbourg, on the way going through Epernay, Rheims, and Nancy. The German army went by this route on their way to Paris after Sedan. The surface soil is shallow, the subsoil calcareous and chalky. The subsoil analysis is, carbonate of lime, 80; carbonate of magnesia, 2; silica, 18. Surface soil analysis: Alkaline salts, .985; carbonate of lime, 28.862; magnesia, 1.401; oxide of iron, 4.545; phosphoric acid, .147; alumina, .849; soluble silica, .095; organic matter, 3.750; insoluble residue, 59.366.

Dealers in wines will tell you that brands of wine, especially of champagne, like brands of cigars, are likely to deteriorate after the brand has been well established, and recommend the newer brands as often the best. This may be the case, but I think the character of wines is most frequently determined by the year of the vintage, as the grapes differ so much in different years, one year making good wine, and another year making very inferior wine.