Seventeenth-century English bottled cider
A lightly sparkling cider bottled before it had finished fermenting, as Sir Paul Neile described it in 1664, with a measured modern method for safe bottle conditioning.
Equipment · Bottles, carboys and demijohns
Bottle for secondary fermentation
tirage bottle
Champagne’s traditional-method bottle holds wine through its second fermentation and subsequent maturation on lees. At tirage it has a crown cap and internal insert; bottle formats and specifications vary.
The bottle becomes part of the fermentation
In the Champagne traditional method, the bottle is not simply the package applied after a wine is finished. It becomes the fermentation vessel. After the base wines are blended, the tirage stage adds a mixture of still wine, sugar and yeast, and the wine undergoes its second alcoholic fermentation inside a strong glass bottle. The Champagne trade body's production description says the wine is sold in the bottle where that fermentation took place.
For Champagne tirage, the official 2025 process sheet describes a polyethylene insert, often called a bidule, together with a crown cap. These are working closures for a stage before the familiar cork and wire cage used for the finished bottle. The bottle remains on its side for maturation; the sediment of multiplying yeast rests as lees inside it. This page focuses on that pressure-bearing vessel and the closure at tirage, not every bottle format used to serve sparkling wine.
Sources for this section
Holding the gas and the lees
Yeast consumes the added sugar and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide. Because the glass bottle and closure retain the gas, the second fermentation makes the wine sparkling instead of allowing its carbon dioxide to escape as it would from an open vessel. For its Champagne method, the 2025 process sheet gives a pressure of 6 bar at 20°C. That value belongs to this documented Champagne process; it is not a universal pressure rating for bottles sold for other uses.
After the second fermentation, the yeast cells die and break down in a process called autolysis. Their components interact slowly with the wine during maturation on lees, contributing to its later sensory development. This maturation is a separate stage from fermentation. Bottles are stored horizontally in cellars protected from light. The bottle, closure and orientation therefore make one package system: the glass wall contains pressure, the closure controls the exchange through the mouth, and the horizontal position keeps the wine in contact with the lees.
Sources for this section
A Champagne history and specific limits
Comité Champagne traces the region's move to bottling wine for storage and transport to the late seventeenth century. Eighteenth-century bottle breakage exposed the risks of rising pressure; thicker glass followed. This is a regional Champagne history, not a claim that all sparkling wine bottles or all modern glass packaging descend from one identical design. The same trade-body source describes several bottle sizes, with 75 cl as the standard Champagne bottle.
The evidence here supports a glass bottle used for a specified method, its tirage closure, and horizontal maturation. It does not supply a universal bottle dimension, a safe working pressure for unrelated containers, or a home fermentation procedure. The Committee's current 20 bar design statement applies specifically to Champagne bottles; it must not be transferred to a visually similar bottle without the maker's own specification. For the same reason, a serving bottle with a cork and wire cage should not be mistaken for the initial tirage closure.
Sources for this section
Equipment details
CapacityComité Champagne lists 75 cl as the standard format and documents many other sizes; this item does not represent one universal capacity.
SizeThe sources do not give a single set of bottle dimensions for this equipment item.
PowerNo power The bottle is a passive container.
How you get oneBought, manufactured Comité Champagne describes purpose-designed glass bottles for tirage and multiple bottle formats; it does not identify a particular glassmaker or retail source.
CareComité Champagne documents horizontal storage during maturation on lees in cellars protected from light. The sources do not set out household cleaning or reuse instructions.
Made of
- Glass — Bottle body
Comité Champagne specifies a glass bottle for Champagne and describes pressure-resistant construction; it does not give universal dimensions or wall thickness. - Polyethylene insert (bidule) — Internal tirage closure component
The Comité Champagne 2025 process sheet describes a polyethylene bidule combined with a crown cap at tirage. - Crown cap — Tirage closure
A temporary closure described for the second-fermentation stage; this is distinct from the cork and wire cage used on the finished bottle.
Limits
The Comité Champagne pressure and closure specifications apply to Champagne bottles and cannot be assigned to unrelated glass bottles by appearance alone.
Source →The source gives several bottle formats but no standard dimensions for this generic equipment item.
Source →Places
Champagne
Documented use · Region evidenceThis records sourced Champagne use and technical specifications; it does not claim the bottle form is exclusive to the region or identical in other sparkling wine traditions.
Related
Used for
Read more
Before Champagne: how English cider learned to sparkle
In the 1650s and 1660s English cider makers bottled cider with a little life left in it, sometimes with a lump of sugar, so it would mantle and sparkle in the glass, decades before Champagne sparkled on purpose.
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Sources
Comité ChampagneFunction · Method · Geography
Bottling and second fermentationComité Champagne explains that tirage bottles the blended wine with a liqueur of still wine, sugar and yeast; yeast consumes sugar and releases alcohol and carbon dioxide.
The official page states the Champagne wine remains in the bottle where that fermentation occurred and is then stored horizontally for maturation.
The page says bottle quality and solidity matter for this second fermentation.
Cited in: The bottle becomes part of the fermentation; A Champagne history and specific limits
Comité ChampagneMaturation · Chemistry · Storage
Maturation on leesLees consist of yeast multiplied in the bottle during second fermentation; yeast dies and decomposes through autolysis.
The source describes Champagne bottles maturing in cellars protected from light, with small gas exchange through closure and glass container system.
The official page distinguishes maturation after second fermentation from the fermentation stage itself.
Cited in: Holding the gas and the lees
Comité ChampagneConstruction · Closure · Technical context
The Champagne making-process (2025)The 2025 Comité Champagne fact sheet describes Champagne tirage as bottling the blend with sugar, yeast and riddling agent, and gives a process pressure of 6 bar at 20°C.
It identifies the Champagne bottle as glass, and says an internal polyethylene bidule is usually combined with a crown cap at tirage; bottles are laid on their sides for ageing.
These details concern Champagne production, not a rating or use instruction for generic household bottles.
Cited in: The bottle becomes part of the fermentation; Holding the gas and the lees; A Champagne history and specific limits
Comité ChampagneHistory · Form · Capacity · Pressure
The Champagne bottleComité Champagne dates the adoption of bottling for Champagne to the late seventeenth century as makers sought to store and transport wine.
The source notes bottle breakage associated with excessive pressure in the eighteenth century and subsequent need for thicker glass.
The page describes Champagne bottle formats as varying and identifies 75 cl as the standard bottle size; it states today's Champagne bottles are designed to withstand 20 bar.
Cited in: A Champagne history and specific limits