Understanding back labels, the secrets behind them

With its sober graphics, the RSRV range stands out at first glance. What’s more, by turning the bottles, some revelations about the production conditions are revealed to those who know how to decipher them.

Two dates are communicated in the format month and year. The first gives the time of bottling of the wine and thus provides information on its main year of harvest. A wine bottled at the beginning of the year is mainly from the harvest of the previous autumn. Indeed, still wines that are produced from vinification are generally bottled in February. After adding a liqueur de tirage, the wines are aged for several years in the cool of the cellars. At the end of the aging, the bottles are riddled to bring the yeast deposit back into the neck, and expel it during disgorging. This is the other date that can be found on the back labels of the RSRV vintages. For those who can read between the lines, Maison Mumm thus demonstrates great transparency because this index allows us to know the exact number of months of aging in the cellar. For the RSRV range, this time is much longer than that imposed by regulations, allowing the wines to develop optimally over the years.

Finally, the batch number on the back labels shows how precision and the search for the best quality are essential for Maison Mumm. Indeed, during the harvest, each case of grapes is identified. This allows precise and exact monitoring from the vine to the press, then to the vats and up to each bottle. The Cellar Master and his team are able to specify which batches are used in the composition of each vintage, but also the vinification schemes, the movements followed in the vat, the blends, the aging… This traceability shows the attention paid to each stage to develop these exceptional vintages.