🍷 Gyropalette
A machine that turns hundreds of bottles at once instead of riddling by hand.
A gyropalette is a machine that turns hundreds of bottles by itself in the making of sparkling wine. It replaces riddling, remuage, the old method in which workers turned the bottles by hand every day. The word remuage means shaking or turning.
Why is this needed? Sparkling wine is made by a method in which the second fermentation happens right in the bottle. Afterwards a sediment of dead yeast remains in the bottle. To make the wine clear, the sediment must be gathered in the neck. For this, bottles are placed at a slant, neck down, and turned little by little. The sediment slides into the neck. Then it is removed.
The gyropalette does all this automatically. Bottles lie in a large crate that tilts and turns on a programme. Work that used to take weeks takes a few days. The machine is used in France, Spain and other countries that make sparkling wine, including Champagne and cava.
Hand riddling survives only at small wineries, as a tradition.
Links
- Part of
- 🍷 Riddling
- Related to
- 🗺️ French wine, 🗺️ Spanish wine
- Similar and different
- 🍷 Riddling
Frequently asked questions
What is a gyropalette?
A machine that turns hundreds of sparkling-wine bottles by itself instead of riddling by hand.
Why are the bottles turned?
So the yeast sediment gathers in the neck and can be removed.
How long does a gyropalette take?
A few days, whereas by hand it takes weeks.
Similar
🍷 Pupitre · 🍷 Disgorgement · 🍷 Liqueur d'expédition · 🍷 Cryoextraction · 🍷 Tirage · 🍷 Lees ageing