Bottle fermentation is designed to make the wine sparkling, hence the name "prise de mousse". prise de mousse ".
Bottling may not take place before January1st following the harvest.
To achieve this fermentation, a liqueur known as tirage is added to the wine, made up of sugar, yeast and a stirring additive.
Beet or cane sugar, previously dissolved in wine, is added at a rate of 20 to 24 g/l depending on the desired pressure, i.e. 5 to 6 kg/cm2 at the end of fermentation.
Sourdough is a culture of selected yeasts that have been acclimatized to the wine environment.
The adjuvant (bentonite or bentonite-alginate mixture) will serve to weigh down and entrain the yeast deposit during the subsequent stirring operation.
In accordance with regulations prohibiting " transvasage " (from half-bottle to jeroboam), the wine will be sold in the bottle in which it was made.
Champagne bottles, which can only be made of glass, have to meet very specific specifications, including withstanding very high pressure and numerous handling operations.
The draught stopper is very important. After filling, the bottles are hermetically sealed with a polyethylene stopper called a " bidule " and a crown cap, then lowered into the cellars, where they are arranged " on laths ", i.e. laid down and stacked, row upon row.
A few still use corks as tirage stoppers. Today, in the vineyards, they store almost all their bottles in "gyropalettes" wire crates .