All terms

Extra brut

Extra brut is a term you will find on sparkling wine, and it tells you about the wine's sweetness, that is, how much sugar is in the bottle. Sparkling wine gets a small addition of sugar towards the end of production, and the amount of this sugar determines how dry or sweet the wine tastes. Extra brut sits at the very dry end of the scale, drier than ordinary brut, but typically with a touch of sugar still left. That is why it tastes bone-dry and fresh, without the sweetness coming forward.

It matters for what you experience in the glass. When the sugar is kept down, the wine's own acidity, freshness and minerality come through more clearly, as do the fine notes of bread and brioche that arise when a sparkling wine has spent a long time on the lees. An extra brut is often a good choice if you appreciate a clean, taut and refreshing style, ideally with food such as oysters, shellfish or other light dishes.

A widespread misunderstanding is that brut always means completely without sweetness. In practice, brut contains a little more sugar than extra brut. If you want the very driest, you will find terms like brut nature or zéro dosage, where virtually no sugar has been added at all.