I hope you are having a relaxing, fun weekend while enjoying a glass or two of wine.

In our latest episode of ‘Crush on This’, the ladies and I explore three French regions that produce delicious Crémant. Crémant is a sparkling wine from France made in a similar fashion with similar grape varieties as Champagne.

There are a few differences, however. The first being that you cannot produce a sparkling wine in France outside of the Champagne region and call it ‘champagne’. Period. Enter, the wonderful world of Crémant with its’ own appellation laws and regulations.

There are nine appellations in the world that produce Crémant, eight of them are in France and the other is Luxembourg. Crémant goes through a secondary fermentation in the bottle (like champagne) but the aging regulations are almost cut in half. The minimum amount of aging required in Crémant is nine months of lees aging (wine resting in bottle with dead yeast cells).

Each appellation regulates what grape varieties are permitted. For example, Crémant de Loire allows: Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir alongside Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Arbois, Pineau d’Aunis, Grolleau and Grolleau Gris.

I hope you enjoy our latest video on Crémant. Do let me know if you have every tried Crémant and, if so, what you have enjoyed.