Champagne wines have a rather complicated classification system, which depends on several indicators. One of the main criteria that distinguishes champagne is its sugar content, which determines the taste of wine. If we talk about brut champagne, these are dry wines with very low sugar content. It is these wines - dry and semi-dry, made in the best ancient traditions of France and are considered the most expensive and valuable varieties of champagne.
Sommeliers generally don’t appreciate champagne with a high sugar content, since it interferes with distinguishing taste and is often intended to mask wine defects.
In general terms, the classification of champagne, based on the criteria for the content of sugar in them, looks like this:
• natural brut - wine without sugar or with a level of less than 0.3%;
• extra-brut - wines with a sugar content in the range of 0.3-0.6%;
• brut - or the so-called classic brut, dry champagne: sugar level in the range of 0.6-1.5%;
• extra-dry - wine, which can be either semi-sweet or semi-dry (1.5-2% sugar);
• dry (sec) - champagne with a sugar content of 1.7 to 3.5%;
• demi-sec - contains up to 5% sugar;
• Dewes - a rare dessert champagne in which the sugar level exceeds 5%.
Champagne brut can be made from any grape: white or red. But the classic option is brut
white wine . Although champagnes made from red
grape varieties differ little in taste from white ones, if you follow the correct procedure for peeling berries.
Brut is made from classic grape varieties, these include Pinot Meunier, Pinot black and Chardonnay. Young brut is a pale yellow champagne, sometimes with a pink sparkle. A very refreshing, stormy wine with a fruity or berry aroma with a touch of fresh white bread. Aged brut (from 3 years) is a stronger champagne, the taste of which gives herbs. The color is dark yellow, the aroma gives an apple, dried fruits, spices, the taste is somewhat reminiscent of croissants. The ripened brut (from 5 years old) has fewer bubbles, but with a stronger, complex and very rich taste. Its color is dark yellow, has a brown tint. The aroma gives dried fruits and roasted nuts, sometimes a shade of coffee slips.
Distinguish Brut vintage and Blanc de Blanc.
Vintage (Millezim) has the same characteristics as an ordinary brut, only with the obligatory indication of the year when the grapes were harvested.
Blanc de Blanc is squeezed solely from Chardonnay. This is usually a fresh wine that retains the aroma of grapes, with a pleasantly sour taste. Young champagne has a pale yellow tint with a green haze, age changes color to golden. Young Blanc de Blanc smells of citrus, flowering mint, forest flowers. Aged - has an aroma similar to Cuvée Brut.
Champagne brut has its own advantages, the main of which is that it is very difficult to fake. Foreign additives in wine drown out most often just with sugar. And every counterfeit goes sweetened. Dry wines always have their own delicate, refined bouquet. We can say that brut champagne is the hallmark of its manufacturer.
This wine also has a positive side in terms of consumption.
- Firstly, it can be combined with almost any dish, from snacks to desserts.
- Secondly, brut champagne will not bring a severe hangover. Alcohol is generally the easier to tolerate, the less sugar in it.
- Thirdly, the intake of this wine minimizes the problems of the gastrointestinal tract, since the fermentation process is very low due to the lack of sugar.
- Well, and the last, positive factor - low-calorie product.