Champaign Corks

[rickards99]

How do they put Champaigne corks in the bottles?

[Quizmonster]

Click http://www.connectioncotedazur.com/cca/wine5.asp and scroll down to the paragraph that opens: 'After the harvest...' Reading from there to the end reveals that the first cork - together with the impurities that have been frozen to it - is removed. This enables the final cork to be easily inserted, since the gases have been expelled, too. Later fermentation is what makes the cork 'explode' once more at your celebration.

[Pinotage]

Well, its not often I can correct Quizmonster, but this time his explanation is just plain incorrect !

To answer your question, the bulbous corks we remove to enjoy Champagne are forced in by a corking machine; prior to machines they were hammered in by mallets.

Making Champagne is basically a two stage process. The first is to make a still white wine, then the wine is bottled and into the bottle goes some yeast to induce a second fermentation in the bottle. The bottle is closed with a crown cap - the same as used on beer bottles. (Nerd note - see the rounded rim of a Champagne bottle - thats what the crown cap goes on.)

Fermenation results in carbon dioxide gas, and because the gas cannot excape it remains in the wine - thats the cause of the future bubbles. It also results in dead yeast. The bottle is slowly inverted so the yeast slides down onto the cap, the neck frozen, the beer cap removed together with an ice plug containing the dead yeast, a small amount of wine is added to replace that which was lost, this is sweetened according to the various types of Champagne, and the new 'proper' cork inserted and held on by a wire cage.

That, very briefly, is the process. There's lots more that can be said.

[Quizmonster]

I'm not at all sure what you've added to - never mind corrected about - my original answer, P! Did you click my link? That says pretty well everything you've gone on to say. But what the hey!

[Pinotage]

Well, Quizzy, you say This enables the final cork to be easily inserted, since the gases have been expelled, too. , what gases? Easy? They don't want to expel gases, thats what makes the wine bubbly. And cork insertion isn't easy:) Then you say Later fermentation is what makes the cork 'explode' once more at your celebration., but the fermentationn isn't later; its already complete when the final cork is inserted.

[Quizmonster]

I'm still not at all sure, P, how an ice-plug loaded with impurities can be 'blown out' of a bottle-neck by fermentation-gases within and then a small amount of wine added without the vast bulk of the gases themselves being lost to air, too. After all, the bottles concerned are under 6 or more atmospheres of pressure, as I understand it. And doesn't the new, added wine and sugar not ferment in the bottle in exactly the same way as the original wine did? If it does, doesn't that create further gases which help to blow out the final cork?

Don't misunderatand me...I'm quite happy to learn here, but I'm no scientist and I just do not comprehend your points. That, plus the fact that I based my original answer largely on the website I offered the link to as well as others...not just off the top of my head.