Not all wines can age. In fact, only about 10% of the wines in the world have the ability to do so. In sparkling wine, it’s generally done a little different: In sparkling winemaking, yeast is added to create both alcohol and the C02 (which gives us the bubbles). Once the yeast has done its job, it creates a sediment of ‘lees’ in the bottom of the bottle. These lees contribute to the flavour of a wine, giving bread, biscuit and toasty notes, but can also keep it fresh and preserved. To take out the lees at the end, they’re gathered in the neck, this is then frozen, and it’s shot out the top once we take off the cap – this process is called disgorgement. In this case, we’ve kept the wine on its lees for 12 years before doing a “late disgorgement.” So now, a wine which originally tasted of apple, grapefruit and florals, has additional characters like toast, preserved lemon, dried fruit and shitake mushroom. Getting this right is something really difficult to achieve; it takes the best grapes and tremendous skill to create a wine which will transform in this way, to something which retains an element of freshness, and hints of its original profile, but also an array of new characters.