Technique
Remuage
Gradual rotation and tilting of the Champagne bottle to collect the yeast lees in the neck before dégorgement. Invented at Veuve Clicquot in 1816.
What it is
Remuage (English: riddling) is the stage in which a Champagne bottle is gradually rotated and tilted from horizontal to almost upside down. The goal: all dead yeast (the deposit) from the second fermentation collects in the neck, ready for dégorgement.
History
In 1816 Madame Clicquot Ponsardin (the “Veuve” of Veuve Clicquot), with her cellarmaster Antoine Müller, developed a revolutionary technique: a wooden pupitre with holes for bottles to lie at an angle, plus a daily ritual of an eighth-turn rotation and a small tilt. Before that invention, the cloudy yeast had to be removed by less elegant methods with significant wine loss. Riddling made clear Champagne possible at industrial scale.
How it was done
Classically by hand in pupitres:
- Bottle starts horizontal, neck pointing down
- Daily: a small turn (an eighth to a quarter rotation) plus tilt
- After six to eight weeks: the bottle stands almost vertical neck-down, all deposit in the neck
- Ready for dégorgement
An experienced remueur could riddle 30,000 to 40,000 bottles a day by hand. A specialist trade, few new entrants today.
Today
Replaced in most houses by gyropalettes: mechanised steel crates of 504 bottles that tilt and rotate on a programme. The same result in four to eight days instead of six weeks. Cheaper, faster, equally effective.
Krug, Bollinger, Salon and some growers still riddle by hand for their prestige cuvées. A question of time and cost more than result: four days gyropalette versus six weeks pupitre. The taste difference is negligible in most blind tests.
For visitors
Many of the large houses still display wooden pupitres during cellar tours, sometimes operationally for prestige cuvées, sometimes for demonstration. The pupitres in the crayères of Reims have a historical pull of their own.