LIVE24SEVEN // Wining & Dining
Patricia Terry IT'S SPRING -OPEN THE CHAMPAGNE!
Hallelujah! Spring has finally, finally sprung. The sun is shining, everything is bursting forth…not least, parts of my anatomy that have become a little too accustomed to winter comfort
food...for example, the crust of freshly made bread, spread with butter at least an inch thick, with a huge mug of tea – one of the best food and liquid pairings in the world – ask anyone with Irish heritage.
Bread and Champagne – both have an essential requirement for yeast! (See what I did there…)
Disgorgement, put simply, is the process by which the dead yeast cells or ‘lees’ created during the secondary fermentation of Champagne in the bottle are removed from the bottle, so that the finished wine is clear. A necessary prequel to disgorgement is remuage (or ‘riddling’ in English). This is when the bottle is gradually inverted, turned and shaken to encourage the sediment of mostly dead yeast cells to fall and stick to the underside of the crown cap or cork temporary closure. Remuage takes place long enough before disgorgement for all the sediment to have settled in the narrow neck of the upturned bottle. Exactly how long the wine will have been aged in contact with its lees to reach this point depends on the type of Champagne being made and the stylistic preference of the producer.
The legal minimum requirement in Champagne is no fewer than 12 months lees contact for non-vintage champagne (and at least 15 months in bottle in total) and no less than 36 months in bottle for vintage.
Disgorgement itself can be done by machine or by hand – an extremely skilled job. The general switch from manual ‘dégorgement à la volée’ to automated ‘dégorgement à la glace’ took place
towards the end of the 19th century and was hugely important for Champagne production as it made the production line faster, which enabled volume to grow rapidly. The methods are:
‘Dégorgement à la volée – ‘letting it fly’
Before machinery, the only way to remove the plug of dead yeast cells was manually, requiring skill and excellent timing! The bottle has to be held pointing downwards, the base in the crook of the arm, to keep the plug of yeasts in position. As the bottle is quickly raised vertically, the bubble of carbon dioxide gas inside rises up towards the top of the neck. When the gas comes into contact with the yeasts, with their other hand the ‘dégorgeur’ has to remove the closure on the bottle, so the pressure expels the plug.
‘Dégorgement à la glace – ‘the freezing method’ This enables many inverted bottles to be passed at the same time through a bath of brine chilled well below freezing level. Once the plug of dead yeasts has become partly frozen in the neck, the machine flips the bottles back onto their base, while at the same time removing the cap or cork closure. The pressure inside the bottle forces out the plug along with the closure.
After either of the above being used to remove the yeast plug, the bottle will
need to be to be topped up slightly, which is when the ‘liqueur de dosage’ is added, an amount of sugar which will determine the style of Champagne to be produced, ranging from brut nature (no sugar), extra brut (3g - 6g sugar per litre) to doux (more than 50g sugar per litre). Laurent Perrier Ultra Brut is the one for me…absolutely love it!
Why is all this so important? Because the time spent in contact with the dead yeast cells, over time, adds complexity, aroma and flavour.
However, as you might imagine, all this process is a huge shock to the wine. I compare it with being in my bed all snug and warm and comfortable, fast asleep and then suddenly and with no warning I am ejected from and catapulted at great speed towards and land in, a freezing cold pond… imagine that and you are somewhere near to understanding how fed up the wine is going to feel!
It needs a rest, which is why many producers put disgorgement dates on the labels so that you and I know when disgorgement took place and while young Champagnes may recover from the shock reasonably quickly, older vintage styles will benefit from longer ageing after disgorgement before drinking, and to this end, some producers ensure their Champagnes have a minimum of six months’ ageing after disgorgement.
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