Read a blog entry on another site and was surprised by the following comment:
“Unlike red wines that are usually bottled at time of vintage, large formats of Champagne are quite often filled from standard bottles just prior to shipping and sale.”
Is this really common practice among the larger brand names? I’ve been considering the purchase of a couple of vintage Veuve Clicquot double-magnums on the assumption that they would have aged more slowly, but now I’m not so sure…
Funny. Never thought of it, but I’ve toured a half dozen caves and never once saw anything but a 750 bottle except maybe in the boutique afterwards. Makes sense though.
I think that 375s and bigger than 3L are usually refilled (transvasage) . 3L used to be transvasage, but I think now done in bottle. Riddling etc gets dicey with big big bottles
Anything between 375 mL and 3L has to have the secondary/final fermentation done in the bottle it is sold in. Smaller and larger than this can be transvasaged. Some producers such as Drappier take pride in fermenting their large formats in the same bottle they are sold in.
The main reasons for not bottle fermenting larger than 3L are due to loss (bottle breakage during fermentation) and a focus on optimizing supply/demand. Glass quality is harder to control as the bottle gets bigger and when matched with a large amount of fermenting wine in the bottle, stuff breaks sometimes. This was the main reason for originally only requiring up to a magnum to be bottle fermented.
As far as aging goes, I think 750s and magnums are more consistent than larger formats. In other words, you can clearly understand and make an educated guess as to what you are getting. The bigger the bottle gets after the magnum size, the more variability I see. Not just in aging, but general development. Sometimes, the balance isn’t there in a jeroboam (or larger) that you would find in a magnum. Sometimes a jero might age very slowly and sometimes it won’t. I don’t have any hard data on this just experience. Two magnums are a better bet (and normally less expensive) than a jero in my book.
Completely agree they are more fun. I just don’t get a predictable development curve out of anything larger than magnum. Sometimes they show amazing, sometimes more youthful than expected, and sometimes just kind of bland. Cork seal quality (or cork quality in general) also starts to become an issue (though not so much at the jero size)