🍷 Sparkling wine

Sparkling wine (fizz, bubbly) is wine whose carbon dioxide comes from fermentation and escapes as bubbles when the bottle is opened. In the EU it is a separate category: an excess pressure of at least 3 bar at 20 °C, gas only from fermentation, and a cuvée with at least 8.5% total alcohol. Champagne, Cava, Prosecco and Crémant are protected names. ¹⁴

Nobody invented the bubbles. The Comité Champagne writes that bubbles in wine had been noticed since antiquity, and in the late 17th century Champagne makers began bottling their wine, which made the fizz much more noticeable. ⁸ It adds that Champagne did not invent sparkling wine but was the first region to try to understand and control the bubbles. ⁷

Four EU categories. Quality sparkling wine needs at least 3.5 bar and a cuvée of at least 9%. Quality aromatic sparkling wine is made only from must of listed aromatic varieties such as Muscat: at least 3 bar, 6% actual and 10% total alcohol. Aerated sparkling wine gets its gas wholly or partly added and is made only from wine without a PDO or PGI. ¹²

Semi-sparkling is another category. Semi-sparkling wine has 1 to 2.5 bar, at least 7% actual and 9% total alcohol, and is sold in containers of 60 litres or less. If the gas is wholly or partly added, it is aerated semi-sparkling wine. ¹

Tirage and expedition liqueur. Tirage liqueur is added to the cuvée to start the second fermentation and may raise its total strength by no more than 1.5%. Expedition liqueur gives the finished wine its taste and may contain sugar, must or wine, sometimes with wine distillate. The gas may come only from fermentation, in bottles or in closed tanks. ²

Bottle, tank or the ancestral way. In the traditional method the second fermentation takes place in the bottle, as for Champagne, Crémant and Blanquette de Limoux. ³⁵⁹ In closed tanks the process is shorter. ² In the ancestral method, as for Limoux méthode ancestrale, the first fermentation finishes in the bottle. ⁹

What the label says. «Traditional method» means a second fermentation in the bottle, at least nine months without interruption on the lees in the same cellar, and disgorging. «Bottle-fermented» means at least nine months of production and 90 days of fermentation and lees contact. «Crémant» is a white or rosé quality sparkling PDO wine from hand-picked grapes, with at most 100 litres of must per 150 kg and under 50 g/l of sugar. ³

Ageing and sugar. A quality sparkling wine with a PDO takes at least 6 months to make in tanks or 9 in the bottle, with at least 90 days of fermentation and lees contact, or 30 in tanks with stirrers; Champagne needs 15 months, vintage 36. ²⁵ Sugar terms: brut nature below 3 g/l, extra brut 0–6, brut below 12, extra dry 12–17, sec 17–32, demi-sec 32–50, doux above 50. ³

Why it matters to you. A PDO name such as Champagne or Cava tells you the place. ⁴ «Traditional method» means the bubbles formed in the bottle, and the dosage term shows the sugar: «extra dry» is sweeter than brut. ³ The WHO reminds us that no level of alcohol consumption is safe. ⁶