The Champagne Making

The alcoholic fermentation

It is the biological transformation, under the action of yeasts, sugars of the grape, glucose and levulose, out of alcohol and carbon dioxide, 17 grams of sugar per liter are thus necessary to increase by 1% the rate of alcoometry. Other share, it is formed substances of must, products secondary which will contribute to give bouquet and savours to the wines (30 chemical reactions involving of résideux gas and solid). It is generally done ferments some under control of the temperatures which must be constant, between 18¡ and 22¡C, and this, during several weeks. After this first fermentation, the wine grower will carry out the clarification of the wine (4 to 5 months).

The malolactique fermentation

It will make it possible the wines to lose up to 30% of their acidity according to choice’s of the wine grower (this one is not always necessary).

The Vintage

The vintage comes from the assembly, i.e. the marriage of type of vines and vintages which will make it possible to benefit the best from wines resulting from various sources. To party of the assembly, the producer will show his creativity in order to give to the base specific characteristics to his Champagne. One then carries out a filtration which will remove the wine from the suspended matter and passage to the cold in order to eliminate the presence of tartar.

The Hard copy and second fermentation
The worked out vintage, it remains to transform it into Champagne. The wine grower then will mix the assembly with drawn-off liquid which is made up of cane sugar and yeasts beforehand selected and likely to modify the bouquet and the taste of the wine. The whole is then brewed slowly in tanks provided agitators in order to ensure a perfect homogenisation. The bottles are filled by leaving inside those a sufficient quantity of oxygen to the second fermentation. They are then stored on slats in cellars where the ambient temperature must lie between 10° and 12°C.

It is there that the second fermentation will intervene. The principle is the same one as the first, but the fundamental difference is that carbon dioxide present in the bottle, instead of escaping as during the wine making, remains in the bottle and will form foam.


 Two transformations take place thanks to sugars : a rise of the atmospheric pressure inside the bottle (from 5,5 to 6 bars)
 a rise of the alcoholometric rate (+1,2 to 1,5%)