A gyropalette is a piece of equipment used in the

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

sparkling wine Sparkling wine is a wine with significant levels of carbon dioxide in it, making it fizzy. While the phrase commonly refers to champagne, European Union countries legally reserve that term for products exclusively produced in the Champagne regi ...

, such as

Champagne Champagne (, ) is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, that demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, ...

, made by the traditional method, where the second fermentation takes place in the bottle.

Background

In order to remove the

yeast Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constit ...

sediment (" lees") left in the bottle after the fermentation, ''riddling'' (or in French ''remuage'') is performed. At certain intervals, the bottle is twisted, shaken slightly and moved progressively to a vertical position with the neck pointing down. Traditionally, this used to take place manually over the course of several weeks, with wine cellar workers called ''remueurs'' performing the task on each individual bottle. A gyropalette performs the same task automatically on many bottles at the same time, and in a shorter period of time. The bottles are placed in a cage, and are moved in a way which emulates the action of a remueur by means of motors and automatic controls. The gyropalette was invented by two French vintners, Claude Cazals and Jacques Ducion, who filed for

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

in 1968. It was first introduced in Spain in the mid-1970s with Cava-producer Codorníu as the first big user. Most sparkling wines produced by the traditional method, including most Champagne, is now produced using gyropalettes. The manual method is still used for some high-end wines.

References

{{reflist Sparkling wines Oenology Champagne (wine)

Background

See also

References