The wine has been settling now for about 5 months, and having had a cold spell at the beginning of February, also went through a cold conditioning phase. Ideally the wine should be allowed to cool to somewhere just above freezing point for a week or so to allow tartrate crystals to precipitate out of the wine. This makes it less likely to happen when the finished wine is put in the fridge before drinking.
My plan is to bottle after six months of settling, which means end of March. The biggest problem is that I need 30 empty champagne bottles. They need to be either true Champagne bottles or bottles which have contained wine made using the Champagne method. These bottles are made from thicker glass than sparkling wines produced using other methods such as prosecco, as they need to cope with secondary fermentation in the bottle which can lead to bottle pressures of up to 100 PSI.
I already had about 12 bottles but needed to find another 18. So I Googled ‘Cambridge Champagne’ and discovered Cambridgeshire Wine School which holds regular tasting sessions and runs various courses on all things wine related. I emailed the guy in charge, Mark, who was very quick to respond, and I met up with him after one of his sparkling wine tasting nights. I managed to pick up another 15 bottles!
So now I’m only 3 bottles short. I either need to drink 3 bottles of Champagne between now and the end of March or find another source…