French terms are commonly used on sparkling wine bottles to indicate the level of sweetness in the finished wine. The different levels are legally dictated in France and generally adopted elsewhere.
Over the past decade, there’s been a strong trend toward lower dosage, resulting in less residual sugar, even for wines where higher residual sugar is the tradition, such as Italian Prosecco.But the labeling terms used to quantify sweetness levels can be confusing, largely because “extra dry” and “dry” actually refer to lightly to noticeably sweet wines.
Although the categories used to describe sweetness on a wine’s label may vary in some regions, most follow the French regulations for Champagne, with similar terminology to describe the grams per liter of residual sugar present in the finished wine.
Here is an explanation of the different categories and common label terms of the same meaning.
