Methode Champenoise is one of the more time consuming methods of sparkling wine. This process takes a minimum of 15 months from start to finish. Once the wine has completed fermentation, it will sit for 1-2 weeks to let the wine settle. It will then be bottled and topped off with a sugar/ yeast mixture and capped with a bottle cap. The bottles will then be placed on their sides as they sit through a second fermentation process. This is what makes it bubbly. After the yeast eats the sugar in the bottle, it will start to ‘die’. We will rotate the bottles through a process called riddling which slowly turns the bottles upside down. This will slowly move the dead yeast, now referred to as lees, into the neck of the bottle so that it is resting against the cap. Once the wine has aged for as long as desired, we send it to our disgorging line.