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I06
MIXED DRINKS.
and supported by a daily magnum or two of good red
—wine, he has not much to complain about. But after
wards he is apt to fall to pieces. Fifty-five is reckoned
a good age for him to attain.
"Of the various details of the making of good
champagne, none is more interesting than the final
stage, immediately precedent to the second and last
corking. This occurs when the wine has been in bottle
long enough to have had all the sediment brought
toward the cork by the systematic turning and the
general inclination of the bottle itself. If you look at
the sediment in such a bottle you may well be surprised
at its bulk and apparent solidity. It shows itself as a
substance by the cork from half an inch to an inch in
length. The contrast of its whiteness with the pellucid
gold of the nether wine is curious. i^nd it is from
this stratum of fine white particles, the crystalized
tartar of the wine, that each bottle has successively to
be freed by the process known as' degagement,'though
more often called' disgorgement.'
/
"Much depends upon the skill of the' disgorger,'
as we will call the man who sits at his work,and takes
bottle after bottle to operate upon. Unless he can time
his movements to the second,he is more than likely to
spill an unnecessary amount of the pure wine in expel-