Cassell's dictionary of cookery

I would, however, caution persons against introducing champagne early in the dinner at all, whether it be dry or not. Indeed, it will be found best if the champagne be dry not to serve it till the pièce de résistance has made its appearance. If the champagne be at all sweet, it had better not be served till the sweets. The French taste is far sweeter than the English: for instance, you will often see a body of grown-up Frenchmen enjoying sweets and dessert, including even sugar plums, m a way that in England is only seen with young children. Cham- PRINCIPLES WINE. Ix^iix pagne in France is almost universally drank after dinner in the same way in which we should finish up with a bottle of claret. But then it should be remembered that the majority of the champagne in France is very sweet ; the champagne-growers adapting nearly the whole of the wine that is sent to England to suit the English taste, and it will generally be found that champagne in England has the word " England " branded on the side of the cork. How far the French are right and we wrong, or vice versa, in thus preferring sweet champagne to dry is a matter of taste. However, there can be no doubt that the taste for dry wines can be carried too far, and that there should be some limit beyond which the dryness of a wine should not be carried. For instance, take the case of the Duke of Montebello's first brand : there is the sec and the maximum sec. Now, in our opinion, the latter is inferior to the former. Again, there is some champagne in which the dryness of the wine has been carried to such a pitch as to cause it to resemble soda-water rather than wine. In fact, there has been of late years a rage for dry wines of every description, especially port. This rage for dry wine, like most other fashions, was carried to an extreme, and was consequently followed by a reaction. The rage for dry port has already ceased, and probably before long there will be a slight reaction in the present rage for dry champagne. We have, of course, omitted all mention of home-made wines, though recipes for making them will be found under their various headings in the present work. Wine, properly speaking, is the fermented juice of the grape, and as this country possesses a climate too cold to allow of the cultivation of the grape in any quantity, it is evident that we must look elsewhere for our supply of pure and genuine wine. At present our supply is almost entirely confined to France, Germany, Spain, and Portugal, and we must necessarily at present make the various vintages from these countries our models, as, indeed, is but just, as much of the excellence of these wines is due to the care taken in the cultivation of the vines. Nothing but the experience of a number of years of trial could have brought this cultivation to its present pitch of perfection. There are, however, other countries in the world that produce the grape in great abundance, and it is to some of these countries that make wine — not so well known as our familiar port, sherry, madeira, claret, burgundy, and hock — that we shall have to call attention by-and-by.