The Auswine Forum

The crown seal is gaining traction in Australia for sealing sparkling wines. Very easy to open and if you do it very carefully and let out the pressure slowly, you don't lose any of the contents. What's not so easy are the undisgorged sparklings which also have a bidule under the crown seal. No matter how careful I am, the bidule is shot out of the bottle when the crown seal is removed - the contents gush out and up to one third of the bottle contents are often lost. With the bidule, there doesn't seem to be a way to slowly release the pressure. Does anyone have any ideas or tips on how to better open these bottles?

For those that don't know what a bidule is, here's a couple photos:

[url=https://postimg.org/image/69i4pd3np/][img]https://s2.postimg.org/69i4pd3np/Bidule1.png[/img][/url] [url=https://postimg.org/image/hym4dca1x/][img]https://s2.postimg.org/hym4dca1x/Bidule2.png[/img][/url]

I know I'm not answering your question but isn't the idea of disgorging, to get the crap out? (Champagne) as in the frozen dead yeast?
To do that you wouldn't want to "slowly release pressure"?

Here's a pic I took of the guy disgorging the bottles by hand whilst I was at Pol Roger, and as you can see, contents are spraying out.
[img]http://i66.tinypic.com/2hs4xs3.jpg[/img]

deejay81 wrote:I know I'm not answering your question but isn't the idea of disgorging, to get the crap out? (Champagne) as in the frozen dead yeast?
To do that you wouldn't want to "slowly release pressure"?

Here's a pic I took of the guy disgorging the bottles by hand whilst I was at Pol Roger, and as you can see, contents are spraying out.

You are correct. But in the case of a Pétillant-Naturel / Méthode Ancestrale there is no disgorgement. The dead yeast stays in the bottle.

Use your coravin to poke a hole in it?

conformistpete wrote:Use your coravin to poke a hole in it?

The hard plastic bidule would be too strong for the coravin needle. Even if it was strong enough, as soon as the crown seal is removed the bidule shoots out so there's no opportunity to use a coravin. Great idea though. There's a post on the Wine Beserkers forum where someone tried a coravin on a bottle of Champagne (note: Coravin say not to do this). The metal cap was removed and the cage replaced. Then in went the coravin needle. When removing the cork a minute later, the bottle was already depressurised.

Love the expression on the chap's face, either he's thinking something resembling the gush from the bottle or about to break wind
Cheers
Craig