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Wine Word of the Week: Riddling
By Kori ~ June 19th, 2010.
This week’s Wine Word of the Week is riddling.
Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine:
Riddling is an integral stage in the traditional method of making sparkling wines, known as remuage in French. It involves dislodging the deposit left in a bottle after a second fermentation has taken place inside it and shaking it into the neck of the inverted bottle. It can be achieved either by hand or, more speedily, by machine. Modern alternative techniques may eventually render this cumbersome process superfluous.
Layman’s terms from Kori:
Riddling is the process by which a sparkling wine bottle is turned so that the lees or dead yeast cells gradually move and collect in the neck of the bottle.
Filed under: Wine Word of the Week
I recently watched a YouTube video about wine storage. The girl was recommending that you turn your bottles while in storage! It may be the way to clean up champagne, but it does nothing for wine you are trying to cellar.
Cat,
Thanks for sharing. You are absolutely right, while riddling is an important part of sparkling winemaking, it does not have the same effect on still wine. Cheers!