Champagne history

[tomstevenson]

Mrdutton is right, but Arrumac is not - the 'boues de villes' was refuse, not sewerage; Paris stopped being its source in the late-1970s when Reims was generating enough of its own rubbish; and the practice effectively ceased more than a decade ago, albeit for financial rather than ecological reasons (since the early 1980s the demand by refuse-fuelled energy plants gradually priced the 'boues' out of the vineyard fertilising market).
Tom