News May 2005

14.05.2005: The winegrowers of Champagne were permitted to trade wine of extra 1.000 kg grapes per hectare already in March this year. The official permission however only came May 14th. Already during the vendange last year, an extra of 2.000 kg grapes per hectare ware picked on top of the normal quota of 12.000 kg. The extra wine has since been part of the reserves.

19.05.2005: Vranken-Pommery Monopole has made a deal with the southernbased winecompany Listel about common worldwide distribution of wine from June 1st this year. Vranken-Pommery is at the moment the secondbiggest group in Champagne with names such as Vranken, Pommery, Charles Lafitte, Heidsieck Monopole and Demoiselle on the labels and with a value of 350 million euros. Listel, who is the French leader in vin rosé, vin gris and vin de sable hopes to be able to boost its export according to the regional paper l'Union. Today Listel only sells 14 percent of its production abroad.

20.05.2005:The big champagnecooperative Nicolas Feuillatte, had a growth on 68,4 percent on the net income last year. With a sale of seven million bottles of champagne in 2004 the cooperative is in the champagne top five, writes La Journée Vinicole.

23.05.2005:Another of the big names, Moët Hennessy, will send more vintage champagnes out on the indian market, amongst them Moët & Chandon Brut Imperial and Brut Imperial Rose 1990 and 1998, according to the indian webpage Hotelier and Caterer. Moët Hennessy India already has wellknown cuvées such as Dom Perignon, Moët et Chandon Brut Imperial and Krug Grand Cuvee in its portfolio on the indian market.

26.05.2005: Lanson has landed in Bulgaria. All classic cuvées - Black Label, Gold Label, Rose Label and the vintage champagnes Noble Cuvée Brut 1997 and Noble Cuvée Blanc de Blancs 1996 can be found on the shelves, writes Novinite.com.

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Wild growth of the wine

Wine at Villers-Marmery in Montagne de Reims in late May.

Since the wine opened in late April, it has not done anything but grow. However at a slower speed than normal.

Even we now move towards midsummerday with pleasant smells of elder flower already declining and poppies in undulating red skirts at their zenith, the wine has not grown as much as usual. June has just been too cold.

Heat advances growth
Normally a vine grows optimally when the temperature of the air is between 25 and 30 degrees Celsius, and so far the mercury has only just passed 20 degrees and only in the middle of the afternoon. Which you see everywhere.

In our rows of wine the longest of the stems now have passed the top thread of the fence with up to half a meter. We see the same heigts everywhere we pass along the road between Louvois and Vertus with wellknown Côte de Blancs terroirs such as Cramant, Avize, le Mesnil and Oger. In most vineyards the wine so far has been left alone.

The first inertia of growth
The growth always begins slowly. As if the wine must overcome its own inertia before it sets moving.

One of the first signs of growth is the first two wrinkled leaves and they sure take their time, before they unfold from their conically shaped bud. Typically it takes around a week or so from the buds begin to be green until they swell and finally the leaves peep out through the two brown flakes, that has protected the bud during the winter.


The first leaves on their way in Trépail.

The different stages of the buds are carefully classified according to their development, for instance:

3. stage (Bourgeon dans le coton): The bud swallen, fluffy looks.

4. stage (Proche pointe verte): The apex from the bud on its way out.

5. stage (Pointe verte): Green point, the apex has arrived.

6. stage (Écartement des feuilles): First leaves unfolding.

This detailed classification makes it easy to discuss the stage and development of the wine across stages, varieties and regions. Anyway the variations are not huge.


The Chardonnay grows in Givry-les-Loisy.

This year the average Chardonnay-grape came out on April 15th, while the Pinot Meunier followed four days later. The Pinot Noir unfolded right inbetween at April 17th, says the profesionnal publication Le Vigneron Champenois.

A vineyard is regarded as unfolded, when this is the case for more than half of its buds.

Burst of growth
When the first leaves are unfolded, the plant puts up the rate of growth. The stems fast develop more and more leaves on longer and longer stems, but also the leaves grow. Only after about a month they have reached their full size.

In this first part of the season a wine uses all its energy on the growth. The second part is dedicated to fertility. First stems, then follow grapes.


These future grapes have been out only a few days.

When four to six leaves have unfolded, the first fragile structures of grapes make their appearance on the stems. Since the little threads, that the wine uses to climb, join in. Only a few days old they become sensitive to touching and will begin to climb whenever they butt against something.

The growth is normally at its maximum in the month of June, where the days are at their longest. Every stem can in this period produce two new leaves per day, the young stems can grow several centimeters.

The powerstation of the wine
The early seaons burst of growth is all about energy. The wine is creating its powerstation of the summer. The leaves.

When they have developped into full size, they take over the production of nutrition. Since the wine woke up in early spring, it is the latex that has fed the plant.


Three-four weeks old wineleaves on a Chardonnay-plant.

Like any other green plant it is the photosynthesis, that produces the energy. It is the natural proces, in which leaves powered by sunlight convert carbon dioxide and water to sugar and oxygene. The sugar feeds the plant and matures the fruits. The oxygene makes it possible for humans and other mammals to breathe, but that is a completely different story.

Since the leaves assure the maturation of the grapes, it is of uttermost importance that there are enough leaves. Or rather, that the leaves are able to produce enough sugar.

As much sun as possible
The most important thing regarding the leaves is that they are well placed. A good placement means lots of sun, since leaves with sunlight can work optimally as power supplier. The amount and size are of lesser importance.

When the wine has grown a bit more - probably not long from now - we will trim the leaves first in the top and later on the sides too. This is why it is very important that the leaves that stay will get as much sunlight as possible.


The rows are orientated after the sun. Montaigne de Reims, May 9th.

For this reason you normally plant your wine so the rows will get the maximum amount of sun. In Champagne most of the rows are turned east-west wards. In warmer regions on the other hand you may choose to plant in order for the grapes to get as little sun as possible. Otherwise the grapes may mature too fast and most likely will not develop the more complex and interesting flavours.

The pleurs of March
On top of light a wine needs water. It is rather easily satisfied though. If it does not get the rain it needs, the roots will dig deeper to seek the water itself. The plant can also manage quite cold winters and warm summers. However, the grapes only mature in a certain spectrum of temperatures. There is a number of different varieties of wine where each of them have specialized in different weather-related, geological and other conditions.

The temperature decides when the wine wakes up in the spring and begins to grow. Typically when the temperature of the soil passes 13 degrees Celsius and the temperature of the air passes 10 degrees Celsius. This makes the roots absorb water, which eventually changes the condition of the latex from thick frostprotection to the thinner liquid of nutrition of the summer.


Chardonnay at Givry, view over Champagne Crayeuse.

It is the latex that flow, if you prune the wine after the growth has resumed. Pleurs de sang is the French name of the phenomenon, the wine cries, and it does quite right flow in surprisingly forceful amounts. As if you just committed a major assault towards the plant.

Even a major crybaby is normally not harmed by late pruning though.

All activity in the apex
As the juice reaches the buds they will begin to turn green, and from this point it is a matter of time before the wine opens.

Within each bud is the apex, that contains all types of structures: The stem itself, the leaves, the grapes and the climbing threads. From the apex the two first leaves unfold, then the stem grows a bit and more leaves emerges. Finally what will develop into the grapes and climbing threads will come out. Each specific feature with even and distinct spacing inbetween them.

The apex, where the growth takes place, sits on the outermost part of the stem. It sort of travels with the stem longer and longer away from the starting point. This means that the older part of the stem is closer to the old wood and the original bud, whereas the new growth takes place longer and longer from the starting point.

When we soon begin to chop of tops and sides of the wall of leaves, the apex - the centre of growth - will be cut off too. This however willl not stop the growth. On the contrary the wine will react to this assault by producing even more leaves in the same fashion as childrens hair. It grows even faster once it has been cut for the first time.

Other apex, that have developped from buds at each pair of leaves, will deliver the new growth. Therefor it will be necessary to cut the sides soon after the top has been cut of. This means that you will meet tractors in the streets on their way to the wine well into the month of July, where the growth normally slows down in order to start maturing the grapes. At this time the soft stems will harden into real wood.


Veuve Clicquot grows wine all over Champagne, this is Verzy early June.

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War against Champagnebrus

The guard dog of the Champagne winegrowers, CIVC (Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne) is back on the warpath. It has come to their knowledte that a more than 100 years old Norwegian drink - without alcohol - is sold under the name champagnebrus. Even in big quantities and none of it ever saw a grape.

This is serious business. In Champagne people care about their name, which happens to be one of the tasks of the CIVC. Which is why the organisation has send a letter to the producers of the totally unacceptable norwegian soft drink to ask them to chanage the name at the latest by the 1st of May.

The brewery Ringnes has digged in its heels and announced that its soft drink, the Villa Champagnebrus, will have a new name in early May. This is not what you can see in their homepage so far but we trust their good intentions so far. After all, the forbidden name has only spend around 40 years on the label .

Much worse is it with the Egernsund Mineralvandfabrik AS with another product called Champagnebrus. The owner, Harald Berentsen, has stubbornly parked his heels in the norwegian cliff and refuse to rename his sparkling drink.

"I think this is amazing. We have produced champagnebrus since 1895 and never heard a thing from the french winegrowers", he says to norwegian TV2's homepage.

The norwegian lawyer of the CIV has put May 1st as the deadline, so now the fight will probably end in court. Just like in Germanu, where the federal court has just
ruled the name "Champagner bratbirne" illegal for the third time, writes the weppage Finance24.com.

It can only be a matter of time before the danish icecream will be sued.

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The first leaves

Chardonnay opens before both Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. This year is no exception.


The first Chardonnay-leaves of the year, Trépail in Montagne de Reims.

Look, how the rose-coloured bud has opened more and more, and the first fine leaves of the year are ready to unfold underneath.

It is already a couple of weeks ago, we could see, how the white Chardonnay-grapes on the southern slopes above Vertus were opening. The last week I have observed, how the Chardonnay of Montagne de Reims does not lack much behind the Côte des Blancs.


The production of leaves in Trépail in full swing.

The development of the plants may differ greatly. This is due not only to the type of the wine - whether it is a white or a red grape - also the general health of the plant and the type of soil beneath the plant matters.

This is why you even in the same row of plants see very different stages. Some plants are already developing their second set of leaves whereas others have not yet unfolded the first ones.

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Ricard wants to sell Mumm in China

Two of the grande marques of Champagne, Mumm and Perrier-Jouët, are amongst the wellknown producers of vine and alcohol, that right now wait to know who will be their new owners. The decision may be interesting for the future.

Today the two brands - based in respectively Reims and Épernay - belongs to Allied Domecq. But the british group is up for sale for the best bid, which only last week seemed to be that of french group Pernod Ricard. 10,7 billion euros for brands such as Ballantine's, Malibu, Stolichnaya and Beefeater. Besides the champagnes. A purchase, that would make Pernod Ricard the worlds secondbiggest group on wine and spirits, and the partner, Fortune Brands, a world number four.

But now the competitors want to join in. The american group Constellation Brands, the biggest winegroup in the world, currently considers its possibilites of making a bid, and the giant, british Diageo, may wait in the wings. And Allied Domecq is certainly not untouchable. A better bid from someone else in the last minute may involve, that Pernod Ricard looses its spoil.

However, if the French succeed, it will be Pernod Ricards entry ticket to the champagneindustry. Today Mumm and Perrier-Jouët is mainly sold on the french and the british market. But it may not remain so forever. Chairman and CEO Patrick Ricard last week said to Le Figaro, that he plans to keep the champagnes, because international customers - he names China - buys more and more of the french prestige wine.

Last years rise in the export to China with its 86 percent certainly seems to offer an interesting potential for the champagnehouses in the future.

Whether Pernod Ricard will get a try selling Mumm in China or not, is future music so far. In the end of June the shareholders in the two groups will decide on the offer, which in case of "go" can be finished in the end of July or early August. That is, if Constellation Brands do not succeed persuading Allied Domecq to change side before the last act.

Read more at Independent, Bloomberg.com eller CNN, interview with Patrick Ricard at The Telegraph or numbers in the official export statistics (PDF).

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Popes are cheered with champagne too

The past week offered a rare but through 2.000 years frequently recurring event - a new pope has been chosen - and how would you celebrate this in a more appropriate way than sharing a glass with the cardinals? The bright red circle of princes of the catholic church, to whom the former cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, belonged just moments before.

They celebrated the election with champagne. Is it possible to imagine better publicity for the French bubbles? Completely for free and distributed to media all around the world by newsmachines as the Associated Press and BBC World.

Once again it has been fixed that the most festive of occasions get just a little bit better when accompagnied by le roi du vin, le vin des rois: champagne. Now I would like to know, what they drank the other night in the Vatican-home of-conclave-hit-therefor-homeless-cardinals. And this is a fact kept totally secret.

As we do not know, how many votes send the nestor of the cardinals to the Holy See, we do not know, who voted for him, and also the excact mix of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier in the glasses is kept in the dark.

But cheerful it must have been. A multitude of media tell, how the newly elected Benedict XVI after having received the tribute of the crowd on Saint Peters Square in his new outfit invited the cardinals to join him in a common meal in the Vatican conclave-home. This is where the cardinals live - cut off from the outside world - while they are in the process to choose a new pope.

The menu was simple, says Associated Press. Beansoup, cut meat, salad and fruit. The nuns, that take care of the meals of the cardinals, of course could not in forehand be told of any dinnerplans, so they did not have time to prepare anything special. But they remembered to cool the champagne!

Some of the cardinals have told, that even songs were sung after the meal. A difficult project when you count the many different nationalities and languages of the cardinals. So they finally chose one in Latin. Cheers.

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Attached to vintage 2005

Ladies and gentlemen, let's attach.

The long and laborious pruning of the winter is over, and we are just about to finish rolling through the rows on the next manpower demanding task in the vineyard: Attaching the wine.

The attentive reader with a good memory may still remember that the wine - if it like ours have been pruned in the Vallée de la Marne way - after this rather exhaustive shave now consists of only two branches and a little bit, that does not interest us now. These are the leftovers that now are to be attached to the wires. Vintage 2005 is on the move, and the ride takes place in a rather peculiar vehicle.

On a low but sturdy little bench on heavy wheels you move from plant to plant. Your advantage is that you do not have to consider other ways of working such as crawl on your knees or bending up and down all the time in front of the 1,2 meters tall - or should I rather say low - ironposts, that carry the wires of the wine. However, you must be prepared to bring your chariot back on the track regularly.


The steering system of the chariot is rather poor, but it is well upholstered and the heavy wheels easily force their way through wood chip, even uphill.

Conveniantly seated on the upholstered bench of the chariot you stop in front of the wine, while you catch one or the other of the two branches. On the old branch the outermost of last years new branches has survived in a length of eight buds. The other and new branch is just long enough not to bother the old one, when they both in a short while will be attached to the bottom row of metal thread. A task, that contributes to the general order of the vineyard.

Ingenious invention
A wine is a liana - a plant that wants to climb - and it will grow in all directions and angles, while looking for something to attach itself to. This is why the vineyard is furnished with ironposts with kilometres and more kilometres of metal thread retained between them. This is where the well pruned wine will be attached in the first part of April, just before the wine begins its growth again.

Three attachments per plant are enough for the Pinot Meunier. For the other types -the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir - the attachment as well as the pruning is slightly different. Meunier needs one attachment for the old branch, another one for its young branch and the third and last one for the new branch. If you need more, you are not good enough... yet. At least that is our rule, checking the work of the neighbours I can see, that the number varies a lot. Even I try to do only three attachments per plant, I count myself really lucky not to work on the official piecework in the business: 90 hours per hectare. We have around five kilometres of wine to deal with, and that adds up to only 2/3 of a hectare.


The old branch is attached. The hook of the lieuse is ready in the loop.

The principle is rather simple. You put a piece of string around your branch and the lower thread. Then you place the hook from the special tool that you use for attaching - la lieuse - in your loop and pull all the way through. Backwards. A movement, where you move your arm 20-30 centimetres backwards and a lot longer than you expect is necessary.

The string you use consists of wire with a layer of paper around it. This you can tie up with a twist, when you use the lieuse. Yet another of the many very specialized tools of this metier. The tool has two parts: One with a hook, that more than anything has a similarity with a small hand drill, and the other one, that resembles the part of a three-in-one cutter for your nails.

You typically begin with the old branch, continue with its young branch and finish with the independant young branch. This is the time you will know if you made the right choices as you did the pruning.


The cutter to the left.

Exercising the wine
The old branch is by far the more easy one for a beginner. You will tie it up where it meets the lower thread in a angle around 90 degrees. This means you just tie straight away, you normally do not have to force it in any direction against its natural growth.

Worse with the two next branches of last year. They are young and actually rather bendable, so it should not cause major problems to bend them 90 degrees against their natural inclination without breaking them. But you better believe that you are right as you carefully press the vertical branch down in a more and more horizontal position, that makes it crush worse and worse. When you have finished your job, the branch is either broken or it follows a rather parallel line along the wire. This is when you can put your second or third attachment.

If you end up with more than one bud over the wires, you cut it off. You simply never pay your vineyard a visit without the proper tool, so always carry your scissors for pruning. This time of year a clip will make the latex flow. It does not cause problems though, as long as you do not get frost the following night.


Concentration please: No broken branches. No loose attachments and preferably in a steady beat.

Here and there the layer of bark creak in an unpleasant way, while you check your will against that of the branch. But even if cracks here and there reveal a light green layer under the brown, normally only branches with disease will break.

Now is the time, where you will be confronted with wrong decisions made during the period of pruning. Diseased or weak branches that should have been rejected but were not will break. It does not influence the amount of grapes, because the new part of the old branch normally will be healthy and this is where the grapes are produced. However, if the other young branch breaks, it means, that the renewal of the plant will be postponed yet another year. The old one must fight itself through another year on its own. Just like in real life.


In the little box on your chariot you carry everything you need to get going for the liage: Your string, your lieuse and your scissors.


Old attachments will stay forever.

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Chardonnay at bursting point

Chardonnay at Vertus facing South are opening.

The new year of the wine is arriving these days. On the steep and southernly exposed slopes exposed just outside Vertus the first Chardonnay-plants have sensed the approaching spring. In the mildest corners the first buds are at the brink of bursting. Our Meunier-plants are not - even exposed to the south too - not that comfortable, and they are also not as developped.

But they too are awake and have been busy at the interior level of the cells for quite some time, started by more light and warmer temperatures. The overwintered nutrients in the old part of the tree have been mobilized, and the latex has risen to feed the buds, until the leaves are unfolded, thus able to take over the assignment.

The first exterior signs of life are, that the buds swell, and push the brown flakes aside, that have protected the bud throughout the winter. The tender buds covered by an extra layer of woolen protection peep out. As the bud continues its growth the first leaves are seen, not yet coloured green by the sun. Later the twigs will grow as long and rich with leaves as they are allowed to.

Parameters for growth
Several parametres influence when the buds will burst to let the first two leaves of the season peep out. The geographical orientation is important. Wine on a northern slope will burst later than wine on a southern slope. But also the variety matters. Thus the white Chardonnay-grapes start before the red Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. Finally your choice of porte-greffe matters.

All wineplants in France are grafted. On the top you find the wine, that produces the grapes - in Champagne Chardonnay, Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier - on the bottom always an american type of wine, because they are resistent to the disease phylloxera. It is this supporting structure, that is called the porte-greffe. You choose your porte-greffe according to your type of soil, and that choise influences whether the wine will be an early bird or a slow starter.

You can also influence the development chemically. Some chemicals will delay the development of the plant in one or two weeks, others will speed it up.

Early pruning a matter of orientation
Finally the time of the pruning matters. If you prune late, it will delay the development of the wine at least for some days. If that is a factor when the pruning is planned, I do not know. But throughout the winter we have followed the big differences in when the pruning are carried out in two of the winedistricts of the region.

In the Côte des Blancs - where the Chardonnay rules - the work has started much more early than in Montagne de Reims, where the northern oriention and the Pinot Noir mean a later development and more time. Here the rule of thumb is that pruning only starts after Saint Vincent on the 22nd of January. At this time the winegrowers in the Côte des Blancs had already worked for 1-2 months. They do not have much else to do in November and December, but in February they are busy with ploughing, harrowing and sowing their other crops. In Montagne de Reims they only do wine.

Almost everybody however is finished now. Both with the pruning and with the attaching of the wine. Very few plots are not ready for the new year, and for this industrious majority there is not much left to do apart from waiting. Maybe lend an ear or two to the predictions of Meteo France of the temperatures of the coming night.

Frost is now the enemy
It is now - right at the bursting point of the buds - that the night frost, which is still a major risk, can destroy a greater or smaller part of the potential of the year. As soon as the buds have burst and have grown a day or two, the new leaves are hardened enough to resist temperatures below zero.

Only three percent of the vineyards of Champagne are protected against frost with lamps, irrigation systems or other frostfighters. The rest must rely on their evening prayers. Maybe I should begin to consider this possiblity too since after all twice in 10 years we have lost some of the potential due to late frost.


Two landmarks of Vertus: Saint Martin and Mont Aimé.

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Britons head the export league

Nobody beats the French in the discipline of drinking champagne, but the britons most certainly try. Rather seriously since they for the ninth year in a row constitute themselves as the unrivalled biggest export market with a record import of 34,9 million bottles. Followed by the States with 20,2 million bottles and Germany with 11,5 millions.

Denmark is not even mentioned, and according to my own experience it is not due to a lack of inclination in either end of the life cycle of the bottle. Rather, as the wife of one of the small mand-and-wife-brands of Verzy put it the other day, Scandinavia is a very difficult market because of its taxes and levies. Myself, I was surprised to learn that a lady like this, who only sells 10.000 bottles per year, even has an opinion about whether it is worth it or not to export to Denmark.

Nobody seems to doubt the British. Regularly we see them with their GB on the tailboards and wheel in the opposite side of the car. But also the export amounts have grown: 40 percent when it comes to number of bottles and 62 percent when it comes to value. Which means that more British drink more expensive bottles. They even seem to create events in order to drink champagne rather than to drink it when the proper events occur. Anyway, that is what Francoise Peretti, who is in charge of the Champagne Information Bureau in Britain, explains to the British winesite Decanter.com.

Enthusiastic Britons or not... there is still a bit of distance to reach the consumer with the record consumption par excellence. Six out of ten bottles of champagne pop in France.

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Corkchange (dégorgement)

Cool bottles with their new cork and muselet.

Champagne spend the storage time wearing a temporary capsule. This will be replaced with the real cork, before the champagne is dressed up and leaves its cool caves to be sold.

At the same time you remove the plug of yeast leftovers and sediments, that has been formed in the bottleneck after the turning of the bottle according to the established pattern of the remuage. Whether done manually or with a machine.

The actual changing of the cork is called dégorgement. For bigger champagne-businesses this today is mainly done with the help of machines. But smaller husband-wife-companies with a production of a few bottles per year still change the corks manually.


The temporary capsules with their plugs of yeast and sediments.

Basically you pull off the temporary capsule with a special opener. The capsule has a kind of plasticcontainer on the back, which will collect the waste after the remuage. After that you tap the cork and fasten it with the thread of wire - le muselet.

To change the capsule manually - a la volée - require certain manual skills. Obviously, you must work fast, so you do not waste too much of the precious content of the bottle. The pressure is six times stronger inside the bottle than outside, so the bubbles are indeed very much attracted to the freedom on the other side of the sturdy walls of glass. On the other hand you also must not work faster than you are sure, that all the sediments will leave.

With his tool le dégorgeur tears off the temporary capsule. The difference of the pressure will expel the plug of sediments and yeast. With a thumb covering the mouth of the bottle he will prevent as many of the bubbles escaping as he can, until the final cork is secured with the muselet. Depending on his abilities and experience a dégorgeur can put the cork on between 400 and 800 bottles per hour.

Liqueur de dosage
A few of the drops - around a centilitre or so - not even the fastest dégorgeur is able to prevent from escaping. Which then on the other hand creates just enough space in the bottle for a little liqueur de dosage: A blend of normally the same still wine as the champagne is made of and sugar or cane sugar.

This is the last chance of the mixer to adjust the sweetness of the champagne. Champagne is so northern that it geographically is almost on the limits of where you traditionally have grown wine on a major scale. The wines from the area are often acidic, because the grapes get less sun than those from more southern areas. On top of that the bottles do not contain even the slightest bit of sugar, because the yeast cells have eaten it all during the second fermentation. And since even a dry champagne - brut - contains up to 15 gram per litre, it is necessary to add extra after the second fermentation. A sweet champagne can contain up to 50 gram of sugar per litre. And be careful, because it is called sec, which could make the beginner confuse it with a dry one.

Automatic plugging
All in all more than 300 million bottles of champagne were sold last year. With a production of one million bottles per year our cooperative certainly belongs to the middle size producers. Obviously bigger then the many man-wife-brands but a dwarf in comparison with grande marques such as Veuve Clicquot and Moët et Chandon. And since you can deal with the dégorgement with a yearly turnover of a million bottles in three weeks per year, it is not at all enough to invest in your own machines. In stead a team with mobile machinery arrives each of these weeks to deal with the plugging.

The first week of March the machine and its team of seven-eight people is working steady and stubborn greatly accompagnied by the rattling sound of the bottles, "pops", "bangs" and off you go. First station is a rather chilly bath.


The bottlenecks get a cold bath at minus 25 degrees Celsius.

The bottles arrive directly on the pallets from the gyropalette with the neck and the plug of yeast pointing vertically down. Keeping this position they are liftet to a rather chilly bath of halfway arctic temperatures. Minus 25 degrees Celsius is the temperature of the solution, that the bottleneck is lowered into. A stay that will last long enough for the plug of yeast to freeze to ice.

The next station is the automatic pluggin. The icy bottlenecks meet la dégorgeuse.


Via a tube the iced yeast is brought to the plasticbag in the left corner..

La dégorgeuse do excactly the same proces as her manual, normally male counterpart. She handles the bottles one at a time. Raises them at the neck from the production line and into a kind of carousel, in which the bottles are tilted slightly one by one in front of the décapsuleuse, that removed the capsule.

The difference of the pressure lets the iced yeast go off in a festive and fizzing "pop". The efficiency of the different carousels vary a lot, but normally you can count on dealing with at least 2.000 bottles each hour. A great deal more than the craftsman of the old days.

The sweetness is balanced
When the plug og yeast has been send off, the open bottles are put back on the production line, where the ratlting roll on to the next station: Dosage. Almost puzzling the rest of the bubbles stay in the bottle. Due to the arctic effect. Even it is only the bottleneck that has literally been dipped into minus 25 degrees Celsius, the chock of this utter coldness has fed into the rest of the bottle, and its content therefore remains nice and quiet during the entire process.


The blend of wine and sugar is drawn off to the right.

Even the loss of champagne is minimal during the plugging, it is still there. The lost centilitre of bubbles will be replaced with a blend of still wine and sugar, the liqueur de dosage. This gives the mixer a possibility of adding a last touch to his wine by chosing the still wine and adjustning the amount of sugar. The wine however will often be the same as the one the champagne is made of.

Sugar, may now ask the unconsecrated reader, at first surprised and then slightly deterred, since today most people by far prefer the dry to the sweet champagne. 92 percent of the sales are the dry brut. However even the brut contains a bit of sugar - 15 gram per litre - and since no sugar is left in the bottle after the second fermentation it is necessary to adjust the sweetness after this proces.

When the champagne has the right taste and contains the number of centilitres it is supposed to, it gets the real cork


"Pop", "bang" and off you go.

This time the cork is to stay, it is secured with the thread of steel and capsule at the top. The latter is a great collectors item here, since the producers are smart enough to change the capsules with the years and qualities.

The bottles travel through another machine, where a kind of ram pushes the cork down the bottleneck and another one secures the muselet.

Thus plugged as it should the bottle of champagne must endure being shaked in all directions in order to blend the bubbles with the newly added sweet wine. A kind of rocking mechanism turns the bottles in all directions, before they once again are send out on a long row in the last bit of production line.


Champagnen rystes sammen med likøren.

The onlu thing left now is to pack the bottles in boxes. Not the final ones though, because the iced neck is not yet ready to be dressed up in gold foil, and before this has happened the champagne is not yet ready to waltz out to please the entire world.


The bottles are lifted off the production line.


Muselets en masse.


Unused cork en masse.

Contents of sugar:

Brut: up to 15 gram sukgar per litre
Extra-Dry: 12 to 20 gr/l
Demi-Sec: 17 to 35 g/l
Sec: 33 to 50 g/l.

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