Appears in
Oxford Companion to Wine

By Jancis Robinson

Published 2006

  • About

riddling, an integral stage in the traditional method of making sparkling wines, known as remuage in French. It involves dislodging the deposit left in a bottle after a second fermentation has taken place inside it and shaking it into the neck of the inverted bottle. It can be achieved either by hand or, more speedily, by machine (see gyropalette). Modern alternative techniques may eventually render this cumbersome process superfluous, but they have not so far been commercially adopted. A riddling rack is English for a pupitre. For more details, see sparkling winemaking.