Wine lesson: brut

FavorFlav’s editorial team loves wine, but as soon as it comes to terroir, tannins and sulfites, their attention tends to wane somewhat. Because what exactly does that sommelier mean? Miss WineLane comes to the rescue and guides you through the wild forest of wine terminology. This week: the sparkling brut.

What is it?

If a champagne is brut, that means it is dry and not sweet. In sparkling wine, an extra splash of wine with (cane) sugar is added at the very last moment—with the bubbles already in the bottle. That tiny bit of sugar (the dosage) determines the bottle’s style. Of the seven official styles, brut and demi-sec are the best known.

A brut contains a maximum of twelve grams of sugar per liter, while a demi-sec contains much more (32–50 grams per liter). A demi-sec therefore tastes sweeter than a brut. Other sparkling wines—such as cava, prosecco and sekt—also use brut as a style designation on their labels. Alternative names are bruto and herb.

Does brut always taste the same?

Brut does not always taste the same. It only says something about the maximum permitted residual sugar content. The final taste of the sparkling wine is influenced just as much by the grapes used, the climate in which they grow and the length of aging in the bottle. For example, a brut champagne with twelve grams of residual sugar can taste drier than a brut cava with only six grams of sugar. The warm Spanish sun makes cava grapes less acidic than those from the cold Champagne region. This often makes cava somewhat softer and sweeter.

Is brut nature healthier than a regular brut?

Due to the hype surrounding vin nature, another sparkling wine style has suddenly become popular: brut nature. This is simply an extra-dry sparkling wine, with less—or no—added sugar (<3 grams per liter). In this case, nature does not refer to something healthy, but to the wine’s original, natural taste.