Secco, Frizzante, Perlwein: why are they cheaper?

Secco and Frizzante: what's the legal story?

On supermarket shelves, they often sit right next to sparkling wine, in similar bottles with a similar fizz. Legally, though, Secco and Frizzante mostly belong to a different category: semi-sparkling wine, or Perlwein. Its carbon dioxide creates a pressure of 1 to 2.5 bar, while sparkling wine only starts at 3 bar. Frizzante is the Italian word for fizzy, while Secco is a trade name common in Germany.

Secco in particular is easy to misread. In Italian, secco means dry, and on sparkling wine labels, secco denotes the sweetness level Dry, with 17 to 32 grams per liter. A Prosecco Spumante labeled Dry is therefore a sparkling wine and tastes noticeably sweet. A German Secco, by contrast, is usually a semi-sparkling wine, and only the taste descriptor on the label reveals its actual sweetness.

For semi-sparkling wine, sweetness follows the same terms used for still wine: trocken (dry), halbtrocken (off-dry), lieblich (medium-sweet), and süß (sweet). Lieblich doesn't exist for sparkling wine, where the sweetest tier is called mild. That word alone on a label reveals which category a wine belongs to.

Semi-sparkling wine with added carbon dioxide: where do the bubbles come from?

Semi-sparkling wine can get its carbon dioxide from fermentation. In that case, the wine ferments in a sealed pressure tank, and the winery bottles it before the pressure rises above 2.5 bar. EU law also recognizes semi-sparkling wine with added carbon dioxide, where carbon dioxide is injected, wholly or partly, into a finished still wine. This is often the case with cheaper Seccos.

EU law does not require any minimum time on the lees for semi-sparkling wine, unlike the rule for quality sparkling wine. This marks a major cost difference from Sekt, which needs at least six months of production time in tank or nine months in bottle. Shorter production means fewer occupied tanks, less tied-up money, and a faster sale.

Why does Frizzante often have a string instead of a wire cage?

At 2.5 bar, a simpler closure is enough. Many Italian Frizzante wines are therefore sealed with a cork held by a string, the spago. Others use a screw cap or a crown cap. For sparkling wine at around 6 bar, that wouldn't be enough: sparkling wine bottles need thick glass, a mushroom-shaped cork, and a wire cage, the muselet. The lighter bottle also saves money.

The string also has a tax-related reason. In Germany, semi-sparkling wine isn't subject to sparkling wine tax as long as it stays under 3 bar and isn't sealed with a sparkling-wine stopper and retaining device. A wire cage would turn a Frizzante into a sparkling wine for tax purposes. Sekt, on the other hand, always incurs the tax, no matter how it's sealed. This alone explains much of the price gap on the shelf.

Is semi-sparkling wine worse than Sekt?

Cheaper doesn't automatically mean worse. Semi-sparkling wine has a different purpose: light, fresh, and fruit-forward, with a gentle fizz that tickles the palate less than the robust perlage of Sekt. Many Pét-Nats, which result from a single fermentation, also fall into the semi-sparkling category and come from small, extremely meticulous producers.

Lower pressure does mean, though, that the carbon dioxide escapes from the glass more quickly. A cold bottle keeps it dissolved better, and opened bottles stay fresh longer when well sealed in the fridge. Anyone comparing semi-sparkling wine and Sekt should know: the price difference comes less from the quality of the grapes than from pressure, closure, production time, and tax.