A CHAMPAGNE FACE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIV, Issue 847, 31 May 1906, Page 21

A CHAMPAGNE FACE.

The Frenchman’s face was hacked and notched. “Have you been a duellist? ’ one asked. t “No, no,” the man replea. 1 have been a champagne maker.” He touched his face. “These honourable nicks.” he said, “are champagne scars.” “Champagne scars,’ he went on, “decorate the visages of all the workers in the underground champagne mills of Rheims. They are caused by the bursting of the bottles. About one bottle in every ten bursts. “There are miles and miles of champagne caves in Rheims, caves cut in solid limestone rock, where in a constant temperature of 45 degrees millions of bottles of wine refine and ripen. , .. “The workers down there smell nothing but champagne all day long, champagne escaping from burst bottles. And as the turners move

along the racks—each turns 35,000 bottles daily—they are continually saluted with explosions. Bang 1 And the glass splinters fly and a little fountain of champagne perfumes the damp air. “Day after day each bottle must be turned, turned 50 times altogether, till the sediment in it has all mounted up and concentrated itself about the cork. Then the corkers remove the corks, let the sediment-thickened wine in the neck of the bottle blow off, and skilfully replace the cork again. “The corkers and turners’ work is dangerous. These men are nearly all scarred like me.”