Henry Vizetelly, Victorian publisher and pioneering wine writer, visited the great Champagne houses of Reims and Épernay and returned with this authoritative account of how sparkling wine is made, marketed, and enjoyed. He traces Champagne’s history from its debated origins through the emergence of the grandes marques, and extends the survey to sparkling wines from Burgundy, the Rhine, Italy, and Spain.
Full of period detail about cellar practices, vintage assessments, and the social world of the wine trade, the book is a delight for wine enthusiasts and social historians alike. One of the finest nineteenth-century works on European wine culture.