Brut Nature champagnes and other low-sugar bubblies are growing in popularity. But what exactly are they, how did they come about, and which bottles are worth tasting?

A bottle of Ayala Brut Majeur. Ayala was a pioneer in the low-sugar champagne space. Image: Timothé Durand.

Understand: How Sugar Impacts Champagne

If you’ve ever been asked if you wanted a dry or sweet champagne, it’s likely words like brut (in the case of dry) or sec (sweet) came into the conversation. In all cases, these words refers to the amount of sugar that is added to the champagne- from none to a lot. In the case of Brut Nature champagne, there is no added sugar. To be clear, all champagnes have sugar— it’s simply part of the chemical composition of grapes as they ripen. But winemakers can control how much sugar is imparted in the wine two ways: first, by deciding when grapes are ripe enough to pick (earlier harvesting results in more acidic wine), and second, adding more sugar at the last moment (dosage).

The composition of dosage
Dosage is composed of what is known as the liqueur de dosage. This concoction is sometimes mix of still wine and dissolved cane sugar, sweet wine, or even grape must. This mix dictates the overall taste profile of the wine along with acidity, fruitiness, and minerality. However, dosage is not a simple matter of pouring sugar packets into bottles of wine. It’s a fact straight out of Willy Wonka— the exact composition of the liqueur de dosage is the secret of every champagne house.

In most cases, sugar isn’t about making champagne taste like candy but is rather an attempt to cancel out any undesirable or overwhelming acidity that might affect the balance and freshness in the drink.

In context, the amounts of sugar can be remarkably low. For example, a typical bottle of Brut champagne has the same amount of sugar that you’d find in a single slice of apple. On a sliding scale that is regulated by the Comité Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne, different sugar totals (counted by grams per liters) determine the type of champagne it will be. You’ll see Brut Nature champagne comes in with up to three grams of sugar for every liter of champagne.

Champagne Designation	Sugar Content (grams/liter)	Perception of Sweetness
Brut Nature/Zero Dosage/Pas dosé	0-3 g/l	Not sweet
Extra Brut	0-6 g/l	Not sweet
Brut	0-12 g/l	Negligible sweetness
Extra Dry	12-17 g/l	Detectably sweet
Dry/Sec	17-33 g/l	Sweet
Half-Dry/Demi-Sec	33-50 g/l	Overtly sweet
Doux/Sweet	more than 50 g/l	Overwhelmingly sweet

If you’re interested in an even deeper dive into the role of sugar in wine specifically, consider reading this thorough examination on the topic, written by Kelli White, author of the fantastic Napa Valley, Then & Now.

The rise of Brut Nature or Zero-Dosage Champagne

As a broad class, Brut champagne (anything with less than 12 grams of sugar per liter) saw a rise beginning in the mid-19th century with the advent of Perrier-Jouët’s Cuvée K, a champagne dosed with 5% sugar. This low dosage completely countered the trend and taste of the time, which favored champagnes containing at least 20% sugar, with ratios often soaring far above that. For context, Edmond de Ayala shocked 1800s Brits by delivering a champagne to London with a 22g/l residual sugar in the mid-1800s. That’s incredibly sweet by today’s standard.

Madame Pommery would reveal Pommery Nature in 1874. Like Perrier-Jouët, it was shipped off to London and well-received, making Brut champagnes the new taste of choice in the highest courts. While Cuvée K and Pommery Nature innovated within the designation of Brut and Extra-Brut champagne, other houses began explorations of even lower sugar. Soon, Laurent-Perrier’s Grand Vin Sans Sucre emerged as the world’s first dosage-free champagne- Brut Nature.

Both Pommery Nature and Grand Vin Sans Sucre were particularly ahead of their time and remain somewhat edgy. Since then (and up to today), adding some sugar has been the general custom in champagne— the act serves as a convenient house differentiator and satisfies the simple matter of customer taste and demand. As proof of Brut’s durability, nearly 92% of all champagne sold today earns the generic Brut designation, with dosages usually ranging between eight and 12 grams of sugar per liter.

Through much of the 20th century, interest in Brut Nature champagne was confined to a smaller group of sophisticated and in-the-know champagne drinkers, passionate about the wine beyond its glamorous marketing and festive associations. As for winemakers, grower-producers like Jacques Selosse and the 12th generation Tarlant Family were zeroed-in on zero-sugar. Regarded as the bohemians of Champagne through the 1970s, these winemakers emphasize the fact that happy grapes and well-maintained terroirs can have significant impact on taste and freshness without a dependency on added sugar.

What does Brut Nature champagne taste like?
Expect a very dry sip with small bubbles and very little sweetness. Often pale gold to the eye, Brut Nature tends to be less toasty than other champagnes. It can have a earthy, rocky impact on the lower portion of the tongue. It often highlights more fruits without being fruity. Citrus can also appear in a pastel-like instance. Brut Nature champagne can still have sweetness, but it often manifests through aromas.

Interest in Brut Nature champagne again climbed when Perrier-Jouët revisited its low-sugar legacy for the first time ever and debuted a new cuvée without sugar in 1981. Presenting it as a pioneer in this quiet category, Perrier Jouët’s debut actually solidified the relevancy and impact the broader grower-producer movement had on on high-volume champagne houses, and particularly on low-dosage champagne. In 1990, Pommery also revisited the designation with Cuvée Louise, a champagne featuring no dosage (although it was never stated on the label). Despite over a century of explorations, it wasn’t until 1985 and 1996 that the Extra Brut and Brut Nature categories would be recognized by the governing Comité Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne.

Climate and Brut Nature Champagne

In communities of agriculture, the idea of climate change has long been a practical reality of doing business— no political meaning assigned. The Champagne region’s precarious geographical situation paired with meticulous condition reports and hand-harvesting makes it uniquely aware (and susceptible) to the dynamics of climate. Sunny one day and frosty the next, climate moves on an immediate basis here. A few hours can be the difference between a heavenly harvest and an unusable one. Beyond critical reception and acceptance, the largest driver of growth in the Brut Nature designation today is the reality of an evolving climate.

As the industry has entered the 21st century, check any calendar and log book and find the reality glaring back: growers in champagne are finding themselves harvesting earlier and under more dynamic circumstances. The growers are challenged by not only evolving standards and tastes, but also the shared responsibility of sustainability— the desire to keep the whole parade going for the generations of growers and drinkers to come.

100 DAYS IN CHAMPAGNE
The two-week harvesting period in the Champagne region has traditionally occurred 100 days after flowering. Thanks to warmer seasons and average rain, the length of time between flowering and picking has been coming down, now at an average of 92 days.

For a long time, it was the climate that made the case that champagne was considered too acidic to be drunk totally dry (served with only the residual sugars from the beginning). Cold and moderate environments simply move slower. And for a long time, the essential combination of sugar and acidity was a reliable indicator of grape maturity in the region.

But as the region becomes warmer, new definitions of ripeness are invited and techniques are borrowed from growers in warmer climes to create new cuvées. Now many champagne makers, especially in respect to low-dosage champagne, are considering physiological ripeness to evaluate the maturity of grapes.

Long utilized outside of Champagne, physiological ripeness does not replace the conventional assessment of grape maturity based on sugar and acids but instead complements it. Some of these new parameters include yeast assimilate nitrogen, berry color, the berry’s aromatic profile, and flavor precursors and glycosides. One of the pioneers in this highly-technical space is Ruinart, funding significant research to unlock new types of measurements with more accuracy. Just to demonstrate how essential yet subjective ripeness can be, the house has actually defined four standards of ripeness: herbaceous, lemony, fruity and sweet.

Brut Nature and Zero-Dosage Champagne today

More than any other designation, Brut Nature champagne is where the climate, house philosophies, and the personal preferences of winemakers meet. The fact is, Brut Nature wines bare it all for the earth and winemaker. The designation forces winemakers to address a strong critique of the liqueur de dosage: use of it can be an easy way to mask imperfections in the winemaking.

To that end, these avant-garde explorations of Brut Nature and similarly low-dosage champagnes have now became a sort of an “odd sister” in the portfolio of many major champagne houses. From a branding perspective, Brut Nature been cast as a more honest, experimental and primary. For consumers willing to go on adventure, Brut Nature and other low-dosage sips can challenge one’s expectation of champagne for the better.