Adolphe's business strength lay in his ability to sell the product. While his father was alive, he continually came up against practices which made this difficult. Memmie insisted on using cheap bottles whose colour was not uniform and outmoded processes which caused cloudiness in the wines. Adolphe wrote to a friend:

I have had terrible discussions to get permission to make wines on the slopes of Reims where for several years, wines of excellent quality have been made, against which we are struggling with so much bad quality. I have all the trouble in the world to make my father understand that it is a thousand times better to fill our vats with good wine than to have recourse to this cursed waste from the breaking of froth which makes a considerable loss and leaves us little benefit. � I have worked hard to know our business and I became a workman myself to be able to go into the smallest detail.� But my friend, the most sound arguments and the most obvious are regarded as foolishness and the ridiculous ideas of young people� People are not so silly as to drink cloudy wine and I understand easily that when you pay 8fr. a bottle, you have the right to demand, beyond quality, something for the eye...

He also wrote to a new agent in 1831:

We possess the best wineyards in Champagne. The Emperor gave a gold medal to my father as encouragement for the best cellars which exist in France; they hold, indeed, 1,500,000 bottles. We sell to all the courts of Europe; we have not yet done anything in New York, not having up to this time found a person with whom we can work surely and peacefully... Do not put yourself forward as a wine merchant; say that you recommend us because you know the way we work; indeed up to this time we have had only compliments about our wine. We pay our agents in London 15 to 18,000 pounds sterling per year, to the one at Petersburg, 20 to 25,000 roubles, to the one in Germany, 20 to 25,000 fr. and in proportion to those in Poland, Sweden and Denmark. You can judge by that the importance of our business.

When Adolphe finally took total control of the business in 1835, the House was in a difficult situation. Taking good advice from his friend, d'Origny, applying his intelligence and mastery of his trade enabled Adolphe to turn the trend around. In fact he gave such an immense impetus to the business that in some years it returned an 80000 fr. profit! Unfortunately, this was soon to be eroded away as Adolphe pursued his other enterprises. For his contribution to the wine industry, Adolphe was awarded the Legion of Honour by Napoleon III in 1863.

Continued...