Méthode Champenoise / Méthode Traditionnelle

Champagne first made still wines. After harvesting and pressing, the musts were put into barrels to ferment; because of the cold climate, fermentation stopped fairly quickly, the wines kept some of their sugar, and fermentation resumed in the spring. In the late 17th century, looking for better ways to store and transport their wines, Champagne makers decided to bottle the wine instead of putting it into barrels, which kept the bubbles from that fermentation in the bottle. In the latter half of the 17th century, Champagne also invented a new, gentler pressing technique in which the juice was separated into fractions. Dom Pierre Pérignon, a Benedictine monk at Hautvillers Abbey, was one of the first to see that different wines and different crus could complement each other. Rod Phillips, writing for GuildSomm, accepts that he was cellar master at the abbey but concludes that he was not the founding father of fizz. In the 1660s an English scientist, Christopher Merret, presented a paper on wine to the Royal Society in London that included a demonstration that adding sugar to wine in a bottle, and then sealing it, produced a second fermentation in the bottle and bubbles when the wine was opened. Pressure was the problem: the Union des Maisons de Champagne says that in the 18th and 19th centuries repeated explosions destroyed as many as 80 percent of all bottles. The growth of the glass industry set the stage for a new Champagne bottle made of much thicker, more resistant glass in 1770. At the turn of the 19th century, riddling racks, called pupitres today, were invented to drive the sediment down into the bottle neck. Tradition credits Madame Clicquot with developing riddling: Rod Phillips places Veuve Clicquot's work on the technique sometime between 1810 and 1820, while the Union des Maisons de Champagne dates the legend to 1818. In 1884 Armand Walfard, owner of a Champagne House, invented the cold disgorging method, which is still practised. Champagne as it is known today traces back to the period from the turn of the 18th to the end of the 19th century, thanks to greater control of the effervescence.

• Still wines came first; fermentation stopped in the cold and resumed in the spring
• Late 17th century: Champagne makers began bottling the wine instead of putting it into barrels, keeping the bubbles
• Dom Pierre Pérignon, a Benedictine monk at Hautvillers Abbey, was one of the first to see that different wines and different crus could complement each other
• 1660s: Christopher Merret's paper to the Royal Society demonstrated that sugar added to wine in a sealed bottle produced a second fermentation and bubbles
• 1770: thicker, more resistant Champagne bottle; turn of the 19th century: riddling racks (pupitres); 1884: cold disgorging (Armand Walfard)

Champagne legislation requires the grape clusters to reach the pressing centre whole. Under the Champagne AOC rules (France), the wines are obtained within a limit of 102 litres of debourbed must per 160 kilograms of grapes. Slowly pressing whole clusters lets the juice flow quickly through the press cake, which is how a white Champagne can be made from black grapes. A primary fermentation is carried out in tanks, and when it is complete there should not be any sugar left in the wine. The still base wine may be a blend of different grape varieties, vineyard sites and vintages; Champagne is typically made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. Once blended, the wine is bottled with the liqueur de tirage, a mixture of still wine, sugar and yeast. Under the Champagne AOC rules, tirage cannot take place before 1 January of the year after the harvest, and Champagne is made exclusively by second fermentation in glass bottles. The bottle is sealed with a crown cap, and at the end of this stage the bottles are stored in horizontal rows on their sides, ready for maturation.

• Champagne AOC (France): whole clusters to the press; 102 litres of debourbed must per 160 kilograms of grapes
• Primary fermentation in tanks: when complete, there should not be any sugar left in the wine; the base wine may blend grape varieties, vineyard sites and vintages
• Grapes: Champagne is typically made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier; slow whole-cluster pressing lets a white Champagne be made from black grapes
• Liqueur de tirage: still wine, sugar and yeast; tirage not before 1 January after the harvest (Champagne AOC, France); crown cap; bottles stored on their sides

In the bottle, the yeast consumes the sugar, releasing alcohol and bubbles, and introduces new sensory characteristics into the wine. WSET puts the alcohol gained in the second fermentation at around 1 to 1.5 percent ABV. The Union des Maisons de Champagne says the liqueur de tirage is now calculated to give 24 grams of sugar per litre of blended wine, and that the build-up of pressure, fierce at first, tails off within two months. The pressure inside a Champagne bottle is within the range of 5 to 6 bar, and the wine contains roughly 12 grams of carbon dioxide per litre. By the end of the second fermentation, the yeasts die and decompose, a process known as autolysis, and the molecules released are slowly transformed as they interact with those in the wine. Meanwhile, minute quantities of oxygen enter the bottle, leading to slow oxidation. Maturation on lees combines yeast autolysis and slow oxidation, which together give the wine tertiary aromas of maturity and fullness. Autolysis releases aromas such as brioche, toast, pastry and cream, and the longer the wine remains on its lees, the more intense and complex these flavours become. The bottles mature in the cellars undisturbed and protected from the light, and the Comité Champagne calls a steady temperature of around 12°C crucial for the best ageing conditions. Champagne's chalk cellars bring together ideal natural conditions of temperature and humidity. Under the Champagne AOC rules (France), disgorgement cannot take place before 12 months from tirage, during which the wines must stay in bottle without interruption, and wines reach consumers only after at least 15 months of ageing counted from tirage, or 36 months for vintage Champagne. In practice, this period is nearly always longer in Champagne: 2 to 3 years for non-vintage wines and 4 to 10 years for vintage Champagne.

• Second fermentation: pressure within the range of 5 to 6 bar; roughly 12 grams of carbon dioxide per litre
• Autolysis: the yeasts die and decompose after the second fermentation; with slow oxidation it gives tertiary aromas, and autolysis aromas include brioche, toast, pastry and cream
• Cellars: protected from the light, steady temperature of around 12°C per the Comité Champagne; chalk cellars give ideal natural temperature and humidity
• Champagne AOC (France): disgorgement not before 12 months from tirage; at least 15 months of ageing from tirage before release, 36 months for vintage; in practice 2 to 3 years non-vintage and 4 to 10 years vintage

Riddling (remuage) loosens the sediment so that it collects in the neck of the bottle: the bottle is rotated in small increments while it is gradually tilted neck-down ('sur pointe'). By hand, the bottles sit in wooden pupitres (riddling racks) and are turned by an eighth or a quarter turn at a time. According to the Comité Champagne, manual remuage takes 4 to 6 weeks and involves on average 25 turns per bottle, while automated riddling machines process metal racks of 500 bottles and take one week instead of six; riddling is usually automated today. For disgorgement, the bottle neck is plunged in a solution at approximately -27°C, which forms a frozen plug of the sediment; the bottle is quickly opened, and the pressure inside expels the plug. Large bottles and certain particularly remarkable cuvées are still disgorged by hand ('à la volée'). Dosage follows: a liqueur de dosage of cane sugar dissolved in wine is added, approximately 1 cl for a 75 cl bottle of Champagne brut, and a liqueur containing a reserve wine can be used to bring other aromas. Under Regulation (EU) 2019/33, the sugar terms on the label are brut nature (less than 3 g/L, only for wines with no sugar added after the secondary fermentation), extra brut (between 0 and 6 g/L), brut (less than 12 g/L), extra dry (between 12 and 17 g/L), sec (between 17 and 32 g/L), demi-sec (between 32 and 50 g/L) and doux (greater than 50 g/L), and the sugar content may not differ by more than 3 g/L from the label. Immediately after dosage, the wine is corked with a cork stopper held in place by a wire cage known as a muselet; the cork is cylindrical when it is made and changes shape after a few years. Each bottle is inspected for limpidity before cellaring for another few months. On labels, the European Union allows 'traditional method', 'bottle-fermented by the traditional method', 'classical method' or 'classical traditional method' only for sparkling wines bearing a protected designation of origin or a third-country geographical indication, or quality sparkling wines, that were made sparkling by a second alcoholic fermentation in the bottle that stayed without interruption in contact with the lees for at least nine months in the same undertaking from the time the cuvée was constituted, and were separated from the lees by disgorging (Regulation (EU) 2019/33). Other appellations set their own lees minimums. The Franciacorta DOCG rulebook (Italy) requires a minimum period on the lees from tirage to disgorging of 18 months for Franciacorta, 24 for Rosé and Satèn, 30 for millesimato and 60 for riserva. The DO Cava specification (Spain) requires at least nine months in contact with the lees in the bottle of the second fermentation, and at least 18 months from tirage to disgorging for Reserva, 30 for Gran Reserva and 36 for Paraje Calificado. Other traditional-method wines include Crémant from several French regions, English sparkling wine, Franciacorta and Trento DOC in Italy, Cava and Corpinnat in Spain, and Cap Classique in South Africa. The tank method (Charmat method) also involves a second fermentation, but in a sealed stainless-steel tank rather than in bottle.

Primary sources (Comité Champagne; Champagne AOC cahier des charges, Decree 2010-1441, via eAmbrosia; European Union law and case law on EUR-Lex; Franciacorta DOCG rulebook; Consejo Regulador DOP Cava): https://www.champagne.fr/en/champagne-frequently-asked-questions, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/champagne-and-its-history, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/how-champagne-is-made/bottling-and-second-fermentation, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/how-champagne-is-made/maturation, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/how-champagne-is-made/riddling, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/how-champagne-is-made/disgorgement, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/how-champagne-is-made/dosage, https://www.champagne.fr/en/about-champagne/how-champagne-is-made/corking-shaking-and-final-inspection, https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/eambrosia-api/api/v1/attachments/8209, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32019R0033, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32019R0033, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:61993CJ0306, https://franciacorta.wine/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/EN-disciplinare_2017_en.pdf, https://www.cava.wine/documents/615/Pliego_de-CondicionesDOPCAVA.pdf. Secondary sources (WSET; GuildSomm; Union des Maisons de Champagne): https://www.wsetglobal.com/news-insights/insight-opinion/a-guide-to-sparkling-wine-production-methods-and-regional-styles/, https://www.guildsomm.com/public_content/features/articles/b/rod_phillips/posts/the-murky-origins-of-sparkling-wine, https://maisons-champagne.com/en/appellation/stages-in-winemaking/from-grape-must-to-still-wines/article/tirage-or-bottling-the-blended-wine, https://maisons-champagne.com/en/appellation/stages-in-winemaking/from-still-wine-to-sparkling-wine/article/second-fermentation-capturing-the-sparkle, https://maisons-champagne.com/en/appellation/stages-in-winemaking/article/the-history-of-riddling-remuage. Last verified 2026-11-09