EU categories of sparkling wine

The six categories

Pressure is excess pressure in a closed container at 20 °C.¹

All figures in this table: Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013, Annex VII Part II.¹ The numbers are the ones the annex gives to each category. Categories 8 and 9 are limited to containers of 60 litres or less.¹

What sets them apart

• Origin of the gas. In categories 4, 5 and 6 the CO2 must come from fermentation; the oenological rules repeat that, for sparkling and quality sparkling wine, it may come only from the alcoholic fermentation of the cuvée.^1,2 Added gas puts a wine into categories 7 or 9; see carbonation.
• Pressure. Sparkling categories start at 3 bar, quality sparkling wine at 3.5 bar, semi-sparkling wines sit between 1 and 2.5 bar.¹ The physics of pressure is on CO2 and pressure in the bottle.
• Raw material. Quality aromatic sparkling wine is made only from grape must or must in fermentation of specific varieties.¹ Asti belongs here; see the Asti method.

Further limits

Quality sparkling wines with a PDO must reach an actual alcoholic strength of at least 10% vol, including the expedition liqueur.² Total sulphur dioxide is limited to 185 mg/l for all categories of quality sparkling wine and 235 mg/l for other sparkling wine.³ EU "Crémant" is stricter, at 150 mg/l.⁴

Note: the category texts were read in the legislation.gov.uk reproduction of the EU regulations, which shows UK-retained law; some points were revoked for England from 2024, and the EUR-Lex versions could not be opened in full. The figures should be re-checked against the current EUR-Lex consolidated texts.^1,2

For label terms that build on these categories see label terms in EU law.