The entire riddling process takes at least six weeks and sometimes as much as 2-3 months. A practised remueur can turn 50-60,000 bottles a day, which is a more reasonable rate than the 70,000 bottles turned in an average day 20 years ago. Manual remuage is the traditional method, carried out by the remueur (riddler or bottle turner) in charge of handling the wines at specific times of the year, and in different places within the same cellar, always adjusting his technique to suit the type of deposit. If any bottle should slip, the whole lot might come crashing down and the breakage would be considerable. Stacking the bottles en masse (neck down) like this is a delicate business and by no means as stable as horizontal stacking ( entreillage). The bottles in the bottom row are positioned neck down towards the floor, with each successive row resting in the hollow bases of the bottles below - about five or six rows altogether. The bottles are wedged tight against the floor, sandwiched between two walls and slightly tilted towards the back wall. The process is long and laborious but essential given the variable nature of the lees, which consist of several layers of dead yeast cells and chemical precipitates (potassium bitartrate and tannic substances).ĭépointage is the stacking of the bottles neck down after riddling, in readiness for disgorgement, with the neck of one bottle resting in the hollow base of the bottle below. At the same time the bottle is tilted, so that by the end of riddling a few weeks later, it is positioned head down and almost vertical ( sur pointe). The objective is to detach the sediment, now made even heavier by the riddling agents, from the sides of the bottle and encourage it to slide into the bottle neck and collect on the underside of the cork (or bidule), taking care not to send the lees back into suspension. Holding the bottles by the base, the cellarworker gives each one a short, sharp rotation, 1/8 th, 1/6 th, or 1/4 of a circle at a time, to the right or to the left, with a chalk mark on the bottom of the bottle for reference. By the end of riddling, the wine is left clear and perfectly limpid and remains in the cellar to rest for a further two to three weeks. The cellar worker in charge of pointage, also known as the remueur (riddler), gives each bottle a flick of his wrist to detach the sediment from the sides of the bottle and send it sliding into the neck. Each surface is pierced with six bevelled holes across 10 rows, creating space for 120 bottles (special pupitres are available for larger bottle formats). The bottles are tilted about 35 degrees in an oak pupitre consisting of two flat surfaces that are hinged at the top (an A-frame-shaped riddling rack). Pointage is the shaking of the bottles to dislodge any sediment.

Bidule definition