Champagne styles: from Brut Nature to Rosé

Champagne is not a monolith. Under the same AOC sit eight recognisable styles, set by three variables: grape, blend and dosage. Once you know the styles, a label reads like a map.

Dosage: the sugar scale

After dégorgement every bottle receives a liqueur d’expédition, a mix of wine and sugar. The grams per litre define the official style.

Brut Nature (also Pas Dosé or Zero Dosage): 0 to 3 g/l, no added sugar. Taut, mineral, brutally honest about the base wine.
Extra Brut: 0 to 6 g/l. A touch more roundness, still very dry.
Brut: up to 12 g/l. The de-facto standard, ~95 percent of all Champagne. Balance between freshness and fruit.
Extra Sec: 12 to 17 g/l. Light sweetness, uncommon.
Sec: 17 to 32 g/l. Off-dry, classic with dessert.
Demi-Sec: 32 to 50 g/l. Clearly sweet, dessert range.
Doux: over 50 g/l. Almost extinct, occasionally revived.

Source: Comité Champagne, dosage and style.

Colour and grape choice

Blanc de Blancs is made exclusively from white grapes, in practice always Chardonnay. Vertical, chalky, ages for decades. Côte des Blancs is its spiritual home.

Blanc de Noirs comes from black grapes only, Pinot Noir and/or Meunier. Fuller in body, often riper fruit, light red-fruit core. Vallée de la Marne and Montagne de Reims carry this style.

Rosé has two production routes. Rosé d’assemblage is made by blending white champagne with still red Champagne wine (the only French region where AOC rules allow it). Rosé de saignée comes from a short maceration with black-grape skins, an approach that gives more colour and tannin. The second is rarer and often more food-friendly.

Prestige Cuvée

The prestige cuvée is a house’s top tier: Dom Pérignon at Moët, Cristal at Roederer, La Grande Année at Bollinger. No legal definition, more a marketing convention. Usually vintage, usually longer autolysis, usually selected from Grand Cru parcels. Price scales accordingly.

How to read this on a label

A bottle like “Champagne X Grand Cru, Blanc de Blancs, Extra Brut, 2018” tells you:

Grape: 100 percent Chardonnay
Dosage: 0 to 6 g/l, dry style
Origin: only grapes from Grand Cru villages
Vintage: 2018, so at least 36 months on the lees

For non-vintage there is no year and the baseline ageing of fifteen months applies, of which twelve on the lees.

Which style when

Aperitif, oysters, sushi: Blanc de Blancs, Brut Nature or Extra Brut.
Chicken, veal, creamy sauces: Brut or Blanc de Noirs.
Red meat, duck, mushrooms: Rosé de saignée or aged vintage.
Dessert, foie gras: Demi-Sec.