Making Champagne - Prise de Mousse

Champagne starts as any other wine, destemmed, crushed, albeit in smaller groups and on a rather delicate press called a Coquart which lets the juice run free, or Saingnée, to keep the red grapes from receiving too much color from the skins.

The resulting musts are fermented separately, in smaller batches, not one big tank of all the wines. They are kept oxygen free, and from these still, dry, wines the house cuvée is blended.
these individual wines can be aged in different manners, oak on the chardonnay, Malolactic on the PN, etc, all at the winemakers discretion.

The wines from Champagne all come from cold growing areas, which imparts low sugar and high acid qualities, so malolactic fermentation is used the majority.

The winemaker blends the Vin de Base from these separately made wines, always trying to achieve the house style. For a non-vintage Champagne, keeping the house style the same is the most important part. The wine maker also uses previously unblended reserve wines, that have been kept from previous years, to add certain characteristics that are missing. If a year was hot and lacked acid, a chardonnay from a previous cooler year would be blended in.

The finished Vin de Base is blended in a steel tank. At 0C, a measured level of sugar and yeast is added to the base wine, (liqueur de tirage) approx 6g to 10g per liter. it is mixed and bottled into the champagne bottles, which are then topped with 'coke' bottle caps. The cool temperature keeps the yeast from attacking the sugar.

This is called the Prise de mousse, the capture of the bubbles. this is the point it becomes Champagne.

The bottles are then moved to the aging cellar. Another particulate of the chalk in Champagne, is it is easily dug in, and the oldest cellars are dug 30m under ground, and are cool and dark. This allows the bottles temperatures to rise slowly and slightly, and secondary fermentation to start.

In the cellar, the bottles are racked on A-frames with 60 holes per side. the racks hold the bottles by their necks at a slight downward angle.

when the bottles sit on their side like this, it is called Sur Latte

In some cellars they are stacked vertical, upside down, this is called Sur Pointe

After about a week, the secondary fermentation is done. The yeast has no sugar left and dies, the resulting C02 is trapped in the liquid with no room to escape and the wine is in a state of Autolysis

Autolysis in winemaking relates to the complex chemical reactions that takes place when a wine spends contact with the lees, or dead yeast cells, after fermentation. While for some wines autolysis is undesirable, it is a vital component in shaping the flavors and mouth feel associated with premium Champagne production. The practice of leaving a wine to age on its lees (or sur lie aging) has a long history in winemaking dating back to Roman winemaking. The chemical process and details of autolysis were not originally understood but the positive effects of a creamy mouthfeel, breadlike and floral aroma, as well as reduced astringency were noticed early on.

This state of autolysis is where Champagne aging happens.
For Non-vintage champagne, it is a minimum of 15 months, and for Vintage a minimum of 3 years in this state.

The resulting wines are all extra brut, that is bone dry, containing 0g to 5g residual sugar per liter.