The French agricultural engineer and oenologist Eugène Charmat worked at the university in Montpellier (Languedoc-Roussillon), among other places. He experimented with large-scale fermentation in pressure tanks made of enamelled steel in the production of sparkling wine. In 1907, he developed the Méthode charmat (tank fermentation method), which was later named after him, and which subsequently became established worldwide as the standard method still used today. In 1909, he was also a founding member of the CFGV (Compagnie Française des Grands Vins) sparkling wine cellar in Wissembourg, Alsace, which still exists today (today it belongs to Sektkellerei Schloss Wachenheim AG in Trier, Obermosel). In Italy, Federico Martinotti (1860-1924) worked on the subject of tank fermentation.
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