What is crémant?

Crémant is a protected traditional term for white or rosé quality sparkling wine with a protected designation of origin.

The designation says something about the method of production, not about a region in itself. That is why on the label the word always appears together with the name of the area of origin, for example Crémant de Loire. Anyone who puts only crémant on a label without that geographical name does not meet the conditions.

Crémant has four strict requirements: hand picking, at most 100 litres of must per 150 kilos of grapes, second fermentation in the bottle and at least nine months on the lees.

Two limits are added to that: at most 150 milligrams of sulphur dioxide per litre and less than 50 grams of sugar per litre. That last limit means a crémant can never fall into the sweetest category of the EU labelling rules, because that begins above 50 grams per litre. After maturation the wine is separated from its yeast deposit by disgorging.

France has eight crémant appellations: Alsace, Bordeaux, Bourgogne, Die, Jura, Limoux, Loire and Savoie.

Every appellation has its own product specification at the INAO, with its own permitted grape varieties, yield limits and maturation periods. The eight lie far apart, from Alsace to the Languedoc, so the grape varieties differ greatly. Outside France, Luxembourg and Belgium also use the designation for their quality sparkling wine.

Champagne comes only from Champagne, while crémant is the designation for quality sparkling wine with bottle fermentation from other protected regions of origin.

The method is similar: both get their bubbles from a second fermentation in the bottle and both are disgorged. What differs are the areas, the permitted grape varieties and the minimum periods laid down per product file. For crémant, nine months on lees is the lower limit; appellations and houses may hold longer.

Quality sparkling wine has an overpressure of at least 3.5 bar at 20 degrees Celsius, and crémant falls under that category.

That pressure comes entirely from the second fermentation in the bottle; adding carbon dioxide is not allowed. For quality sparkling wine the EU also sets a lower limit for the total alcoholic strength by volume of the cuvée. Because of the pressure, a crémant belongs in a thick-walled bottle with a cork and a wire cage, not in an ordinary wine bottle.

Sparkling wine carries legal indications for sugar content, each linked to a range in grams per litre.

Extra dry runs from 12 to 17 grams per litre, dry from 17 to 32 grams, semi-dry from 32 to 50 grams, and above 50 grams the regulations speak of sweet. Because crémant must stay below 50 grams per litre, you will not come across that last designation on a crémant. The drier designations lie below 12 grams.