Lesson 6 of 9 · 5 minutes

  1. 1. What makes wine sparkle
  2. 2. The life of a bubble
  3. 3. Five ways to make bubbles
  4. 4. The traditional method step by step
  5. 5. Grapes and the blend
  6. 6. Sugar and dosage
  7. 7. Where it sparkles
  8. 8. Reading the label
  9. 9. Serving

Sugar and dosage

After this lesson you will know what dosage is, what the seven sugar words on a label mean, and how to turn grams per litre into grams in your glass.

  1. 01

    The last touch: dosage

    After disgorgement the bottle is topped up with liqueur d'expédition, usually cane sugar dissolved in wine.1,2 Adding it is called dosage, and the sugar it brings sets the sweetness term on the label.3 For a brut, about 1 cl of liqueur goes into a 75 cl bottle.1 Brut means less than 12 g/L of sugar.3 To get grams in a 125 ml glass, multiply by 0.125: under 1.5 g.

  2. 02

    Brut nature: no sugar added

    The driest term is brut nature: less than 3 g/L, and only if no sugar was added after the second fermentation.3 In a 125 ml glass that is under 0.4 g. Without dosage, the space left by disgorgement is filled with the same wine, and such wines may be labelled, for example, "Zero Dosage".2 More on brut nature and zero dosage.

  3. 03

    Extra brut and the overlap

    Extra brut covers 0 to 6 g/L, so at most 0.75 g in a glass.4 The dry terms overlap: a wine with 2 g/L fits brut nature, extra brut and brut at once. When two terms fit, the producer chooses only one.3 So two bottles with different words can hold the same sugar. The word on the label names a band, not an exact figure.

  4. 04

    Extra dry is sweeter than brut

    The next band up is extra dry, 12 to 17 g/L, or up to about 2.1 g in a glass.4 The name sounds drier than brut, but on the EU scale it sits above it. The real sugar may also differ from the label by no more than 3 g/L,3 a margin called the sugar tolerance.

  5. 05

    Sec: 17 to 32 g/L

    Sec, or dry in English, means 17 to 32 g/L.3 At the top of the band a 125 ml glass holds 4 g of sugar, more than twice a brut at its limit. The terms also exist in other languages: for brut, the EU lists German herb and Spanish and Portuguese bruto.4 The full table is on the sugar scale.

  6. 06

    Demi-sec and doux

    Demi-sec covers 32 to 50 g/L, and doux means more than 50 g/L.3 At 50 g/L a 125 ml glass holds 6.25 g of sugar, about four times a brut at its limit. These are the two sweetest of the seven terms. Sweet styles are described on sweet sparkling wine.

Remember

  1. Dosage is the liqueur added after disgorgement; its sugar sets the sweetness term.
  2. EU law has seven terms, from brut nature (under 3 g/L) to doux (over 50 g/L).
  3. The dry bands overlap: a 2 g/L wine may be brut nature, extra brut or brut, and the producer picks one.
  4. Extra dry (12-17 g/L) is sweeter than brut (under 12 g/L).
  5. Grams per litre times 0.125 gives grams in a 125 ml glass: a brut stays under 1.5 g.

Check yourself

1A wine has 2 g/L of sugar. Which term can its label carry?

2Which of these is the sweetest on the EU scale?

3A demi-sec has 40 g/L of sugar. How much is in a 125 ml glass?

See also

The sugar scale of sparkling wineDosageDosage and liqueur d’expéditionMethodsBrut nature (zero dosage)StylesSweet sparkling: demi-sec and douxStylesLabel terms in EU lawMethodssugar toleranceGlossary

Sources

  1. Comité Champagne (champagne.fr). Dosage
  2. Union des Maisons de Champagne. Dosage
  3. EUR-Lex. Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/33 (consolidated text), Articles 47, 48, 49, 53, 54 and Annex III Part A (2023-12-08)
  4. legislation.gov.uk (copy of EU OJ text). Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/33, Annex III Part A (sugar-content terms for sparkling wines), original version as adopted (2018-10-17)

Facts checked on 2026-10-20