Bottles of Champagne made in the traditional method are bottled with yeast inside for a period of time. This allows fermentation to continue after bottling, producing CO2 which gives the wine its bubbles. Of course your bottle of Champagne does not come to you complete with dead yeast cells so those cells (the lees) must be removed (disgorged) at some point.

To do this, the lees are slowly inched towards the neck of the bottle. While the wines are still fermenting they are stored at 45 degree angles, cork down, on special racks called pupitres. Every day or so the riddler comes by to riddle the bottles. No, he does not try to confuse them. He gives them all -- each bottle -- a slight twist and a shake, to shift the lees towards the neck.

Doing this once? Easy. Doing this 1000 times? Tedious. Doing this for every bottle produced by a major Champagne house? Well, damn.

Enter the Gyropalette! This device handles the remuage (the riddling process) entirely, removing that tedious work. It's a very specific task, but great for a machine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyropalette

The one on the Wikipedia page looks more like a missile array to me than a bottle shaker.

I hear that the top wines at the top Champagne houses are still riddled by hand, but as you can imagine this is a good step forward... and another Great Advance in Winemaking!

I should have an after school special.