Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1. Vineyards and Villages
2. Bustling Harvest
3. Vineyard Geography and Terroir Highlights
4. Innovations in Winemaking Practices
5. Economic Impact and Cultural Legacy
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Vineyards and Villages
In early October 1872, under rare sunny skies, Champagne’s vineyards stretched in golden splendor across the Riviera district, from Avenay to Venteuil and beyond Hautvillers, the famed birthplace of sparkling Champagne.
The road to Aÿ, the premier cru village often called the “golden vineyard,” was lined with poplars and led past Dizy, with its grey slate-roofed bell tower shadowed by vine-covered slopes.
The normally quiet villages hummed with energy, as harvest season arrived amid difficult conditions that had halved grape yields.
Bustling Harvest
The 1872 harvest was marked by a frenzied atmosphere. Women and youths wove through the vine rows, carrying baskets brimming with grapes, while men hauled heavy loads to the presses. Carts overflowed with harvesters and fruit, moving steadily over cobbled roads.
Agents from prestigious houses like Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Mumm, and Montebello hurried to secure hundreds of barrels of raw wine (“vin brut”), driving prices to unprecedented levels.
Workers earned high wages reflecting the harvest’s urgency: 2.5 francs a day plus meals for pickers, 3 francs for press operators. Brokers, perspiring but satisfied, secured thousands of barrels, their commissions swelling with each purchase.
Even vineyard owners, typically cautious with profits, briefly enjoyed the soaring prices as a tonneau that once sold for 60 francs rose to 350 francs. The general merriment extended even to Prussian observers present in the region, though they were unlikely to stay long enough to taste the celebrated wines.
Vineyard Geography and Terroir Highlights
The vineyards encircle Épernay on three sides, climbing hills that separate the Marne River from the Vesle Valley and stretch south toward Vertus.
Aÿ stood out with 750 acres of premier cru vines, while Hautvillers, Dizy, Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, and Pierry held second-tier status. Villages like Épernay, Cumières, Champillon, and Vertus ranked third. The 1872 shortage forced even lesser vineyards such as Fleury and Venteuil to sell their wines at four times the usual price.
White grapes flourished near Cramant, Avize, Oger, and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, producing limited whites in Aÿ and Dizy. The landscape featured striking conical hills streaked with vivid purples, yellows, and crimsons. Pierry’s wines were noted for their flinty character, shaped by chalky soils studded with silex, a defining trait giving the village its name.
Harvest 1872 from Épernay to Pierry
Innovations in Winemaking Practices
At Aÿ’s press house, four powerful new flywheel-driven presses operated by teams of four men revolutionized grape processing. Before mechanical pressing, grapes were lightly trodden barefoot to protect quality.
The resulting must filtered through wicker baskets into tanks, settled, then transferred into barrels for fermentation. Barrels were loosely corked to allow fermentation gases to escape, with wine transferred to fresh barrels by Christmas.
Later blending and dosage by merchants such as Veuve Clicquot and Roederer transformed the raw wine into sparkling Champagne, which fetched premium prices—10 to 15 shillings per bottle—in English hotels.
Along the road to Mareuil, inns bustled with coopers and harvesters celebrating, their walls adorned with murals of Bacchantes pressing grapes, a lively reminder of the region’s cultural connection to wine.
Economic Impact and Cultural Legacy
Despite yields at half the average, prices soared dramatically, injecting wealth into the villages and their social hubs like cafés and cabarets. In Mareuil, vin brut sold for 550–600 francs, close to Aÿ’s record prices of 800 francs per 44 gallons.
Avenay, near Reims, experienced a meager harvest but sold first-press wine at 500 francs per barrel. Hautvillers, where Dom Pérignon perfected sparkling wine, had only a sixth of its normal yield, with wine selling at 650 francs per barrel.
The 1872 harvest remains an enduring snapshot of Champagne’s economic fragility and human enterprise. It immortalizes a year when the “golden vines” of Aÿ, the meager bounty of Hautvillers, and the fervent activity of vintners and laborers converged, revealing the resilience and innovation at the heart of this iconic wine region.
Source
The Pall Mall budget, London, 1872-1873, v. 9, n. 216
TAG: CHAMPAGNE 1872, AŸ VINEYARD, HAUTVILLERS, MOËT & CHANDON, VEUVE CLICQUOT, WINE HARVEST, PRESSING TECHNIQUES, FRENCH VITICULTURE, WINE PRICES, TERROIR, CHAMPAGNE HISTORY
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