Dégorgement

Dégorgement — disgorgement — is the penultimate step of the traditional method. After remuage has gathered the lees in the bottle neck, the inverted neck is dipped into a bath of frozen brine at around −25 °C. The plug freezes in place; the bottle is righted, uncapped, and the internal pressure expels the frozen lees.

The bottle is then topped up with the liqueur d’expédition (dosage) and re-corked with the familiar mushroom cork and wire cage. The date of disgorgement is increasingly declared on back labels, since it effectively starts the clock on the wine’s post-dégorgement life.