When you talk about champagne, there are many things that we care to know about which type of champagne you are talking about. One of the aspects is sweetness. Is extra dry champagne sweet?
Most of the time when we mention anything to do with sweetness around champagne, the first thing we think about is whether that champagne is brut or extra dry. Our major focus today is gonna be on whether this extra dry champagne is sweet. Honestly, the name does not sound like it’s sweet but let’s see whether that’s right.
There are many things however that can determine whether the extra dry champagne is sweet or not. Now let’s get to know all about this extra dry champagne and perhaps get to answer this question correctly.
How Much Sugar?
Have ever known that sugar is a major component of any champagne? It has always been like that since the days of old. They still do include sugar as a component of champagne maybe to agree with the existing history or maybe to better the taste.
Now with the extra dry champagne, we can talk about sugar percentage which essentially goes up to 2% quite sweet for champagne. It is one of the sweetest champagne houses that exist.
This goes down to the composition of the ingredients and their proportions. We are simply talking about how much sugar possibly exists in the extra dry champagne.
Let’s Understand it
The term extra dry or extra sec as some refer to it seems to confuse many. They tend to think about it as a rival of the Brut champagne I term of dryness. I think that is the wrong idea since extra dry champagne has little to do with dryness. It’s rather sugary.
In this context, we should just look at the aspect of sugariness. What we get to see maybe to correct this is that Brut champagne is far much the lowest in sugar level. Extra dry champagne has up to 17ml of residual sugar per liter.
The difference is better taken the correct way so that we get Brut champagne away from the discussion and get it easy to understand. With that understood that way, we can now talk about extra dry champagne entirely and see what makes it that sweet.
What Makes it Sweet?
We have already implied that extra dry champagne is sweet it is often referred to as sweet champagne. What matters is the dosage of the sugar. The sweetness level is a matter of sugar and how much we got as residual sugar level per liter.
If there is sugar in plenty, it means that we will end up with sweet champagne. The combination and the flavor can add up to the sweetness. Specifically for champagne, it has been found out that grapes from the champagne region quite struggle to ripen and the end result is that they leave the champagne with quite high acid levels rather than sugary.
For the extra dry champagne, we find out that more sugar is included during the blending to make sure that the citrus is quite low in terms of level compared to sugar. That’s the basic reason why I mentioned above that up to 17ml of sugar are found in every liter.
If we have to get it all the correct way, we have to see how sweet the extra dry champagne can be compared to other champagnes and whether it is the sweetest champagne or not. There are several other brands of champagne that taste sweet too.
As we mentioned earlier, it is possible to talk about the sweetness of champagne when we know the exact amounts of every single ingredient that makes up the whole blend. There are other many types of wine but we don’t talk about them though they’re sweet too. We have to base our discussion on champagne houses.
It is important to note that for wines generally, extra dry champagne comes in the middle in terms of sweetness but it is far much more than that when we talk about champagne only. That’s another aspect that seems to confuse many whenever such discussions come up.
There is lots of confusion around deciding on the sweet champagne but it is better answered when we approach it from many different perspectives. There’s something called a dose in winemaking and this is what is the major determinant of the sugar levels in winemaking.
In many companies, especially champagne, before the bottle is sealed there’s a liquid that is added to the champagne to regulate the sugar level to the correct proportion. So after the addition of sugar, the dose is what gives us the final sugar content. It is therefore correct to say that extra dry champagne is sweet and that it is sweet as a result of the sugar content.
The question; is extra dry champagne sweet? is better answered when we talk about how it comes the sweetness comes in rather than whether it is sweet or not.
You could also read about Brut vs extra dry champagne.
Is Extra Dry Champagne Sweet - Conclusion
Is Extra Dry Champagne Sweet? It is quite a wide discussion in deciding whether extra dry champagne is really sweet but we can just answer it and it ends there. What makes it more interesting is what about sweetness?
Much more information can be fetched in that line and we get to see not only whether it is sweet but many other things including why it is sweet and whether it is sweetest among the champagne houses. However, we should not lose the focus of our discussion; is extra dry champagne sweet?
Some may say yes directly while some would want to look at it from another perspective. Extra dry champagne is sweet but this opens up to many other discussions, whether it’s sweetest and so on. We have seen that it’s sweet and further seen why and how it becomes sweet. The rest might be of less importance, but our question is well answered now or you might consider finding out with a bottle or two!
