February Disgorging Update

With busy sales at the end of last year the sparkling wines all need to be restocked and labelled.

Most of you will have been on one of our tours and understand the processes involved in sparkling wine production but for those that don’t;- Disgorging is the process of removing the yeast from the bottles once the second fermentation and aging process is completed. This includes the addition of a grape derived sugar to balance the acidity of the wine. This process is essential to ensure the wine is clean, clear and a joy to drink.

Wines tend to need some time to balance after processes like bottling, filtering or disgorging. Particularly after disgorging, a process called the Maillard reaction (similar to baking) starts to occur over time, when the flavour and aroma compounds combine with the sugars. This further develops the autolytic, biscuit and brioche aromas in the wine we know and appreciate in a glass of fizz. This process needs to be done 3-6 months minimum ahead of release (depending on the wine).

In February the wines being disgorged were the remainder of the current releases of Blanc de Blancs ’18, Cotswold Classic ‘21 and Rosé Brut ’21 - All extremely popular. A new wine we’re also just finishing disgorging is the release of the next vintage of Reserve;- Reserve Cuvée 2020, due to a low yielding year for Pinot Noir there’s not a lot of it. It is more of a Chardonnay dominant wine (66%), slightly different our usual Pinot Noir dominant blend bringing more of a citrus element to the composition. Just released this month, it is tasting particularly good so we’ll have fingers firmly crossed for some good results in competitions later this year. 

Aged yeast cells in the bottle

Frozen plug of yeast pre-disgorging