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Physicochemical Characterisation of Commercial Brazilian Sparkling Wines Produced by the Charmat and Traditional Methods

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Physicochemical Characterisation of Commercial Brazilian Sparkling Wines Produced by the Charmat and Traditional Methods

Author Information
1
Campus Caxias do Sul, University Center of Serra Gaúcha (FSG), Caxias do Sul 95020-371, Brazil
2
Beverages Technology Lab, Institute of Food Science and Technology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre 90010-150, Brazil
3
Laboratory of Enology and Applied Microbiology, Institute of Biotechnology, University of Caxias do Sul, Caxias do Sul 95070-560, Brazil
4
Associação Brasileira de Enologia—ABE, Bento Gonçalves 95703-120, Brazil
5
Campus Bento Gonçalves, Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Sul (IFRS), Bento Gonçalves 95700-000, Brazil
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 22 January 2026 Revised: 20 March 2026 Accepted: 14 April 2026 Published: 27 April 2026

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© 2026 The authors. This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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Food Res. Suppl. 2026, 1(2), 10007; DOI: 10.70322/frs.2026.10007
ABSTRACT: This study provides a physicochemical characterisation of commercial Brazilian sparkling wines, aiming to describe the typicity of products obtained using the Charmat and Traditional methods. A total of 261 wines were analysed, including 119 produced by the Charmat method and 142 by the Traditional method. The results show distinct compositional patterns across the analysed samples. Wines produced by the Traditional method, predominantly based on blends of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, showed higher levels of lactic acid, volatile acidity, alcohol, and pressure, together with lower residual sugar contents. In contrast, Charmat sparkling wines displayed greater varietal diversity, including the widespread use of Glera, and higher levels of residual sugar, malic, and citric acids. A relatively high proportion of sparkling wines were identified as “Long Charmat”, with maturation periods of six months or more on lees in tanks, while a subset of Traditional method wines showed ageing times shorter than 12 months. In both production methods, Riesling Italico (Welschriesling) ranked among the four most frequently used grape varieties. Overall, the results highlight consistent compositional tendencies within a broad set of commercial wines. This study establishes a reference compositional dataset for Brazilian sparkling wines, contributing to the understanding of this expanding wine category by characterizing production practices and grape variety usage and identifying “Long Charmat” as a distinctive feature in the Brazilian context.
Keywords: Long Charmat; Secondary fermentation; Varietal diversity; Riesling Italico (Welschriesling); Glera
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