Champagne bottles should be opened carefully.
All champagne bottles, while they may come in different sizes, are the same type. The champagne bottle, no matter its size, is made of medium to dark green glass, though the bottle for ros champagne can be clear. The bottle must be wide, with thick walls, sloping shoulders and a long neck. It's closed with a cork, which used to be hammered into the neck of the bottle. The bottle also has a punt, or an indentation at the bottom.
Strong Bottles
Because of the rituals of champagne making and because champagne is under so much pressure after it's bottled due to fermentation gases, champagne bottles have to be more durable than bottles for other wines. Before he learned to make his bottles strong enough, Dom Pierre P rignon, the cellar master of the Abbey of Hautevillers near the end of the 17th century, lost half of his champagne because the bottles burst.
Riddling
The bottle must survive riddling, where sediment left over from winemaking has to be consolidated and then removed. Riddling was invented in the 19th century by Veuve Cliquot, a wealthy widow from Riems, France. The process must remove the sediment without removing the bubbles. First the bottles are put at a 45 degree angle with the cork pointed down in racks called pupitres. The bottles are gently shaken and twisted every day, a process called remuage, then returned to the pupitres. After a month and a half or two months, the bottle is pointed straight down (sur point) so the sediment settles on the cork. The bottle is ready for disgorgement.
Disgorging
The disgorging process involves removing the sediment from the champagne bottle. The neck of the bottle is frozen, and when the bottle is opened, the plug of dirty ice shoots out and leaves clear, clean champagne behind. Because the wine is so dry at this point, a little wine and sugar might be added to it.
Bottle Sizes
The larger sizes of champagne bottle can be unwieldy, though according to "The Antique Wine Company" wine in bigger bottles lasts longer and tastes better than wine matured in standard sized bottles. The bottle sizes are:
Quarter 18.75 cl
Half bottle 37.5 cl
Bottle 75 cl
Magnum 1.5 l
Jeroboam 3 l
Rehoboam 4.5 l
Mehuselah 6 l
Salmanazar 9 l
Balthazar 12 l
Nebuchadnezzar 15 l
Very large bottles might have the riddled and disgorged champagne of smaller bottles simply poured into them.
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