Winemaking
Dosage
The final addition that sets a sparkling wine’s sweetness — and why Brut is not the driest category.
The short answer
Dosage is the mixture of wine and sugar added after disgorgement, replacing the small volume lost and setting the wine’s final sweetness. The categories run from Brut Nature, with essentially none, through to Doux.
Overview
Dosage is the last decision a sparkling producer makes and one of the most consequential, because a wine’s balance can be transformed by a few grams per litre.
The naming is genuinely counterintuitive: Brut is the most common category but not the driest, and Extra Dry is sweeter than Brut.
How it works
The mechanism, at the scope it has actually been established.
The liqueur d’expédition — wine, sometimes aged or oaked, with dissolved sugar — is added immediately after the sediment is ejected.
Sweetness is one purpose. High-acid sparkling base wine can be austere, and a modest dosage brings it into balance without tasting sweet.
It also affects ageing. Sugar contributes to how a sparkling wine develops after disgorgement, and zero-dosage wines are generally regarded as needing to be drunk closer to release.
The categories in ascending sweetness are Brut Nature, Extra Brut, Brut, Extra Dry, Sec, Demi-Sec and Doux. Extra Dry sitting above Brut is a historical artefact of a period when sparkling wine was generally much sweeter, and it has confused people ever since.
A zero-dosage wine requires exceptional base material, because there is nothing to cover an imbalance.
The specific gram-per-litre ranges attached to each category are set in EU regulation and have been amended. WineHQ publishes the qualitative ordering and cites the regulation for the figures, rather than reproducing numbers that may have moved.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/33 — wine labelling, presentation and protection of designations — European Union
- Comité Champagne — Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne
- WSET educational materials and the Systematic Approach to Tasting — Wine & Spirit Education Trust
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