Riddling device used today?

• A. Hand-riddlers
• B. Centrifuge
• C. Gyropalettes
• D. Filter presses

Answer: (C)

Riddling is the step in sparkling wine production that moves yeast lees inside bottles toward the neck so they can be removed cleanly during disgorgement. The device used today is the gyropalette, a large rack that holds many bottles and automates the motion with alternating tilts and rotations. This lets gravity do the work across hundreds of bottles at once, speeding up the process, delivering consistent results, and greatly reducing labor compared with doing it by hand.

Hand riddling is the traditional method still used by some small producers, but it’s far less efficient at scale. A centrifuge isn’t suitable for riddling in this context because it applies strong forces to bottles under pressure and isn’t designed to move sediment in a controlled way within sealed bottles. Filter presses are used to separate solids from liquids during winemaking, not to perform the riddling process itself.