What is pet-nat?

With pet-nat, the wine is bottled halfway through the first fermentation, after which the remaining sugar continues to ferment and the carbon dioxide becomes trapped in the bottle.

So no second fermentation is involved and nothing is added to get the bubbles going. The product specification of the AOC Bugey explicitly forbids, for the designation Cerdon, both a liqueur de tirage and a liqueur d’expédition.

The producer instead controls fermentation with cooling and by removing part of the yeast cells.

Champagne gets a second fermentation in the bottle with added sugar and yeast, whereas with pet-nat a single fermentation does the work.

With the traditional method, the base wine is first fermented completely dry and then goes onto the bottle again. With the méthode ancestrale the first fermentation is interrupted and continued in the bottle, so sugar remains in the wine.

That difference explains why pet-nat often has less alcohol and more residual sugar than a dry sparkling wine.

The AOC Bugey Cerdon requires gamay and poulsard, forbids additions at bottling and demands at least 40 grams of fermentable sugar per litre at that moment.

The finished wine must contain between 22 and 80 grams of fermentable sugar per litre and reach an acquired alcohol content of at least 6.5 percent vol. The bottle then stays on the lees for at least two months.

A wine moreover may not be made exclusively from poulsard; gamay must be included.

Without dégorgement the yeast deposit stays behind in the bottle, which can make the wine cloudy as soon as it is moved or poured.

With the traditional method, that deposit is removed by freezing the neck and letting the plug shoot out. With a pet-nat that often does not happen, because the wine is bottled as a whole.

If you leave the bottle standing upright, the sediment stays at the bottom.

In the AOC Bugey Cerdon, the wine must have an overpressure of at least 3 bar, measured at 20 degrees Celsius.

That limit belongs to the European definition of sparkling wine, as opposed to semi-sparkling wine that sits in the bottle at lower pressure. Because fermentation continues in the bottle, the pressure can differ per bottle.

Opening carefully is therefore wise, especially with a bottle that has just been transported.

In the wine & spirits shop at Brink 2 in Bathmen, the sparkling wines are all together, from prosecco and cava to crémant and spumante.

Pet-nat staat niet vast in het schap. Vraag ernaar aan de toonbank of bel 0570 541 278, dan kijken wij wat er te halen is. Wij verkopen geen alcohol aan mensen onder de 18 jaar: NIX18.