Olet'te Sparkling Blanc De Blancs (Champagne)

The Olet’te Blanc de Blancs (white from white), made from 100% Chardonnay is dry and crisp. Small lots of malolactic- and barrel-fermented wines are added for complexity. The wine is aged on the yeast lees in the bottle for over two years prior to disgorgement. With its vibrant, fruitful and crisp nature, this sparkling wine will maintain its freshness, structure and refined finish for many years, even decades following its initial release.

Winemaking & what Méthode Champenoise means on our label

Whether it is called Champagne or sparkling wine, what is really important is how the wine is made.  The best Champagnes and sparkling wines are made by méthode champenoise which requires a secondary fermentation in the bottle.

This secondary fermentation is accomplished by adding a mixture of sugar and yeast, called the liqueur de tirage, to still wine. This wine is then bottled and capped, with a bottle cap similar to ones found on beer bottles – not a cork. The yeast acts on the sugar and the resulting carbon dioxide remains trapped in the bottle. Quality sparkling wines are usually left on their yeast for several months, even up to six years. At the end of this process, the cap is removed and replaced with the traditional cork with a wire cage.

The important thing to remember is that secondary fermentation happens in the bottle of quality sparkling wines.

HAND RIDDLED & SEQUENTIALLY NUMBERED

Each of our  Olet’te bottles is hand riddled on a riddling rack.  Riddling involves the gradual tilting of the bottle neck-down (‘ sur pointe’), meanwhile rotating it by small increments, clockwise and anti-clockwise. As the angle of tilt increases, the forces of gravity draw the sediment into the neck.  Traditionally, all champagne was riddled.  We continue the tradition of this process and thought it was important since we touch each bottle that the labels are sequentially numbered in the top left corner of our label.