Chaptalization
As the chaptalisation or Chaptalisation (from French la Chaptalisation ) refers to a named after the French chemist Jean-Antoine Chaptal named (1756-1832) cellar technical measure to increase the final alcohol content of wine by adding sugar to grape juice or wine before or during the fermentation .
This measure, also known as dry sugaring, originally served to raise the quality of weak vintages in order to guarantee the economic survival of the affected winegrowers. It can be used by all European wine-growing regions ; there are maximum permitted quantities set by the EU , which depend on the location of the wine-growing region. A maximum of between two and four percent alcohol by volume may be obtained by chaptalizing - depending on the EU wine-growing zone in which the wine-growing region is located.
However, the national winegrowing law of some member states regulates chaptalizing more strictly than the EU does. In Germany, only wines up to the " quality wine " level may be subjected to this measure, with predicate wines , for example Kabinett or Spätlese, chaptalizing is not allowed.
In the wine-growing countries outside of Europe, chaptalizing is usually not allowed (there is usually more sunlight on average), but acidification in particular is allowed and widespread. Acidification is a method of adding acidity to wine.
Chaptalizing was developed to compensate for fluctuations in the vintage, and in the 19th century winemakers liked to talk about the "sun out of the bag". In Germany around the middle of the 19th century, the chemist Ludwig Gall from Trier introduced a different process called wet sugaring , after many winegrowers in the wine-growing areas on the Moselle had to give up viticulture as a result of several poor harvests in a row. In this process, the sugar was dissolved in water and added to the wine in order to also dilute the acid in this treatment step. In Rhineland-Palatinate, this procedure was allowed until June 30, 1979.
The addition of sugar, grape must, grape concentrate or rectified grape must concentrate (RTK) is referred to using the collective term enrichment or improvement .
All German wine-growing areas, with the exception of Baden, are part of the European wine-growing zone A and may be increased by max. Enrich 24 grams of alcohol (equivalent to approx. 60 g of sugar) per liter of must. The Baden wine-growing region is located in wine-growing zone B. There, a max. 16 grams of alcohol per liter of must can be enriched.