Works of Wine
Chaptalization.
The cleansed juice is measured with the dosimeter to specify its sugar concentration exactly, therefore its potential alcoholic strength. After reading and calculation on table of chaptalization, one adds the quantity of sugar necessary to obtain in-fine 10.8 °GL with resulting from the first standing fermentation.
Sowing
After chaptalization, comes the step from sowing of the juices in order to be sure that the selected yeasts will carry out a work of fermentation without organoleptic drift prejudicial nor drift of fermentation (volatile acidity, SO2 consumption...). Will follow alcoholic fermentation of it ferments stainless of it thermobabbited to avoid aromatic destruction and the stops of fermentation due to overheating. Will follow after this the "malo-lactic" fermentation (transformation of certain acids of the wine).
Racking
Racking is the operation of clarification of the wine. After various finished fermentations, the yeasts die for lack of food (sugars) and settle with the bottom of the tank. It is then enough to pump the limpid supernatant to obtain clear Champagne wine.
Cooling and filtration
The wine, once tapped, must be filtered to obtain a perfectly limpid wine. This operation is carried out after cooling (stabilization of the wine and precipitation of the tartar) and going through filter on the basis of sand neutral agglomerated with plants cellular.
Blending
It is the action of marriage of the wines so specific to Champagne. Indeed, the Champagne wine results seldom from the same year (vintage) or from the same type of vine. It is by definition since its birth in a 1703 (“Dom Pérignon” there helped well us) wine which obtains its complexity and its smoothness thanks to the mixture of qualities of three type of vines born in various soils. All the large Champagne houses have their "Blending" so specific to the taste of their Champagne. There are approximately 4600 "different Champagne Blending" to be able to satisfy all the palates of the whole ground, so different from one individual to another. It is essential also to follow the analogies of one year taste on the other in spite of the variations of climates to keep a profile with our Champagne and not to disorientate the customers. It thus will be a question of finding the percentage of the various tanks to be married (wine of reserve of one, two, three years included/understood)" to imagine" the taste of future Champagne once the catch of foam carried out.
Put out of bottle and catch of foam
Comes then the moment to imprison the wine out of bottle, after having added in known
quantity, the yeast cane sugar and some product of wine making. The wine is bottled, then this one is sealed using a tight capsule. The yeasts added to the wine then slowly will consume sugar and will produce CO2 which will dissolve in Champagne, in position slept in our cellars and will confer its so characteristic foam to him. It takes 15 month for the bottle to be marketable. In our propriety, we preserve those 28 months for a better maturity out of bottle and to satisfy our customers as of the purchase, without any obligatory speculation in cellar. The Champagne is a wine of the kings, therefore a wine of festival. It must give pleasure instantaneously as of its acquisition !
Moving
After their slow evolution, the bottles initially in position lying and at rest will be placed on automatic stirrers. These machines will rectify very small little bottles every 6 hours to make slip the yeast deposit of the belly of the bottle towards the neck.
Discharging
It is one of the last operations on the bottles and the wine. The deposit being concentrated in the neck, this one is plunged in a brine vat to -25° during 10 minutes. A wine ice floe is formed imprisoning yeasts. The bottle is then loosened and the ice floe is expelled under the pressure of the Champagne wine. Do not remain any more whereas to add with dose (1 kg of sugar for 1L clear Champagne wine ) at a rate of 1,3 cc per bottle (on our premises) for the “BRUT” and 2,6 cc per bottle (for the “Vintage Amandine”). Then one again seals the bottle with a stopper and a “muselet”. The operations on the wine are finished. Any more but do not remain to equip the bottle after having waited three months than this liquor mixes correctly with the wine.
