I · 1903 · Épernay
The Quarto from Reims
A forgotten line in an appendix was all that remained.
Among the great stories of Champagne there was once a small one. It slept for a hundred and twenty years inside a printed quarto until one summer evening in Épernay let it back out.
There is a tradition of folio books about Champagne written in the 1880s and 1890s. In their appendices they listed the houses of the region in a column, with founding dates in small antique type. The great names stood at the top. The smaller ones grew shorter toward the bottom.
In one of those lists, printed in Reims in 1903, in the back third, between names that every sommelier knows today, was also this one: Lecureux & Cie., fondée 1834. Three words, one year.
Three words are enough if one knows what to look for.