[Rarebooks] FS: First American Book on the Champagne Vineyards -1867

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

"The Champagne Country"

By Robert Tomes.  Published in New York by George Routledge & Sons: 1867.

A tour of Rheims and the surrounding countryside by an American "adopted
son" who had lived there several years. He deplores the fact that while
thousands of American visit Paris, fewer than two dozen have ventured into
Rheims during his time there. This was the first American book to focus
specifically on Champagne country and its wines.

Tomes includes details of all aspects of Rheims life, including much on
the vineyards and wines. Chapters 6 through 15 are devoted to the wine and
champagne industries there, including Cliquot, Dom Perignon, and other
smaller houses, the vineyards and their owners and workers, the
manufacture, bottling and distribution of champagne and other wines, the
great vintage of 1865, wine tasting and purchase, how to chose champagne
and frauds and counterfeits to stay away from.

He has this to say of the influence of Germans in the wine industry there
- “There is, in fact, not a wine establishment in all of Champagne which
is not under the control, more or less, of a native of Germany. If the
nominal head should chance to be a Frenchman, he is sure to have a partner
or chief clerk of that country. There was, however, a champagne house
which happened to be controlled exclusively by natives of France. It
became bankrupt while I was at Rheims, and it was a common remark that it
perished for want of a German”.

Hardcover. 5"x7.5", xv + 231 pages. Bound into modern plain brown cloth,
with new endpapers, cloth a bit rubbed. Pages very lightly toned, else
fine.   $500.00

Some Pictures =>

<http://www.joslinhall.com/images30/th-31146-page.jpg>
<http://www.joslinhall.com/images30/th-31146-cover.jpg>

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