WHAT IS BRUT CHAMPAGNE?
Brut champagne is a wine that is dry in taste and with very low levels of sugar in the bottle. In the past, champagne was made with large amounts of sugar which was added to adjust sweetness levels for the time period. Then, in the late 1800’s, a wine producer named Perrier-Jouet created a craft champagne without any additional sugars. This was essentially the birth of Brut champagne.
Unfortunately for Perrier-Jouet, the wine did not pick up in popularity due to its tongue drying character. It would be thirty years until another wine maker, Pommery, would have greater success with his brut-style wine. Champagne today is made in a wide variety of styles, from incredibly dry to super sweet, and if you know how to read the labels, you will understand all the references to brut, extra brut, sec, and so forth.
Brut Champagne Styles
There are a few different types of Brut wine that you should familiarize yourself with. They are:
Extra Brut. Extra Brut Champagne is a wine with low sugar levels.
Brut. Brut is dry, raw and undefined and tastes relatively dry on the palate.
Extra Dry. Extra Dry, though not dryer than a Brut champagne as the name would suggest, this wine is usually slightly sweeter than the Brut variety.
Sec. Sec is dry wine, but has a slightly sweet taste.
Demi-Sec. Demi literally means half, so this wine is not as sweet as the Sec variety.
It’s All In The Grapes
Champagne can technically only be called champagne when it comes from the Champagne region of France. This special blend of wine uses only Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes and can be made using a blend of grapes, vintages, and vineyards. It can take up to 45 different combinations of still wines to get the final blend for the Champagne.
The grapes used to make Champagne are harvested, aged, and fermented before the bottling process takes place, and in order to get the bubbles, the wine must undergo a second fermentation process which captures those bubbles in the bottle. This second fermentation is the result of added yeast and sugars to the already blended bottles of wine. The yeast then begins to collect as sediment, or lees, and this influences the flavor of the wine, giving it a fresh baked bread quality.
The making of Brut Champagne and its many varieties is a centuries-old process that has been perfected into a work of art. Whichever variety you choose to lighten up a dinner party, or just for a quiet evening at home, you will know that you are drinking one of the finest beverages produced.
