Poignettage (shaking) of
the bottles: consists in shaking 3 or
4 times the bottles of champagne with a movement of the wrist. This
is traditionally done at several moments:
- the end of the ageing on laths, before riddling, to unstick the deposit (dead yeast and riddling agent) and re-suspend it in the wine.
- After dosage, to homogenize the expedition liqueur with the wine.
During ageing on laths,
the producer can decide to operate one or several poignettages of the bottles,
to favour the autolysis (decomposition) of the bottle fermentation yeasts, and
give roundness and complexity to the champagne.
