THE MYSTERIES OF THE CHAMPAGNE TRADE.

Press, Volume VII, Issue 744, 18 March 1865, Page 4

THE MYSTERIES OF THE CHAMPAGNE TRADE.

[From the Morning Post, December 14.] It would appear from the case of Abrahams t Attenborough, which was tried by the Court of Queen's Bench, on Monday, that champagne may even be purchased at the very moderate pnce of 12s 9d a dozen, and sold at the racecourse at a guinea a bottle. It has been asked:—How can a genuine picture of one of the old masters possess so much value, when the best judges are unable to tell whether any particular piece is an original or a copy ? If the quantity and quality of the gold in an alleged counterfeit sovereign is so equal to that of a genuine one that you cannot tell them apart by the nicest test, what difference of intrinsic value can there be between them ? Similar queries suggest themselves with regard to champagne. One would have thought that the mouths belonging to the pockets which could disburse a guinea for a single bottle of champagne would know the genuine article when they tasted it, and be able in a moment to distinguish it from spurious. If they cannot do this, as it seems they cannot, then the inference is that the counterfeit must be very like the original. It is said that there is more champagne drunk in the world in one single day, than the whole yield of the champagne country would amount to from the accumulated vintages of twenty years. The famous Swiss grape, out of which excellent champagne is said to be manufactured, appears to have a formidable rival in the equally celebrated Putney gooseberry. If there is twenty times as much champagne drunk in a day, taking the world over, as there is produced by the champagne vineyards in a year, one would suppose that every drop must be drained out of it native locality the moment it is fit for export, and that anybody applying there for a bottle would be in the same predicament as the traveller who stopped at Epping to taste the famous sausages, and was told he could not have any, for the significant and suggestive reason that t{ the London coach had not come in." It appears that certain champagne warrants had been pawned in 1862 with the defendant in the action mentioned above. In May last these warrants were put up for sale at Messrs Debenham and Storr's, in Covent Garden. How it was that in the summer season, when champagne drinking is part of the normal state of things, eager speculators, anxious to make a hasty fortune by clearing 2000 per cent, would not invest in this metaphorical gold mine, does not appear. The champagne had to go a-begging. "No one appeared to venture on it in bulk," so it was attempted to get it off in small lots of a dozen or two. The plaintiff Abrahams invested to the extent of a couple of dozen. This seems to have encouraged the defendant to' accost him and make him an offer of the whole quantity on hand, and " ultimately it was agreed between them that the plaintiff should have the remainder at 12s 9d a dozen, but it was afterwards made 13s a dozen. The defendant, in the course of conversation, said the wine came from Switzerland, and was very good, and as the 'Derby and Bath races were coming off, it would be a good thing for him." The plaintiff also swore that *' this wine suited people who attended races. It is sold on racecourses at a guinea a bottle and under ;" and we dare say, when the weather is warm, and there is much demand, it is sold at a guinea a bottle "and over." The tacts and issue of the case are of interest as illustrating the mysteries of the champagne trade, and particularly as furnishing an infallible recipe for making a large fortune in an incredibly short space of time. If this wine, and any amount of the same sort, had been bought by one knowing what to do with it just before the races were coming on, and sold at 2000 per cent profit immediately afterwards, and then the proceeds turned in the same way again and again at the successive races through the year, and so on during subsequent years, the heaps of gold that would be piled up by this process in the course of a single decade are perfectly astounding. The hypothetical farthing put out at compound interest, Anno Domini 1, and amounting by this time to countless globes of gold as big as this earth, is the only parallel worthy of being placed in contrast with so marvellous a phenomenon. Something bitter, however, is generally sure to turn up in the sweetest draught; and this excellent champagne from Switzerland, warranted to realise about' 2000 per cent, profit on the racecourse, had 'been so unlucky as to get into Chancery. When the plaintiff went to Fleming's wharf with his warrants to get the wine, he found that no less than five injunctions had attached themselves to it, and held it in their grip. The worst of it was that he had sold it before he had obtained corporal possession of the article; The keeper of the Grand Stand at Epsom was to have twelve dozen at 25e per dozen. The defence was that, not the wine, but only the warrants were sold, and that the defendant did not warrant his warrants, but only agreed to sell them as he held them. His. council impeached the patriotism of the plaintiff for having " extolled Swiss champagne and ignored the Putney gooseberry:" but his humor and hboeloqnence were alike thrown away, as the jury atka a verdict which gave back the plaintiff the £40. 7" A paid, together with £25 damages for not being able to complete his contracts with the persons to whom he had sold the wine. When the injunctions are got rid of, this champagne will no doubt be consumed at the races next season at the rate of a guinea a bottle.