French words for "fizzy"

J

Jeff Grossman

Jeff Grossman
Lately, I've seen mousseux, petillant, and perlant. Are there more? Is there an ordering, like, least fizz to most fizz? Or, small bubbles to big bubbles?

Is there a similar hierarchy for Italian fizz?: spumante, frizzante, ...e altre?
 
Perlant is the least fizzy. Mthode ancestrale has fewer bubbles and lower pressure. Mousseux has connotations of "cheap" and "placeless." I don't believe it's used in AOCs. Ptillant is standard and doesn't imply which practice (mthode champenoise, for instance). There is also crmant, and Clairette de Die is a sparkler, though since clairette is a grape, I don't think the term is interchangeable with bubbles.

ETA: Now I will go back and add all of the italics. Drat this whole analog system.
 
I have had Vouvray mousseux from good growers. No idea how they decide, or when practice may have changed.
 
Interesting.

So I decided to see what Wikipdia has to say.

According to their anonymous yet all-knowing sources, three terms have to do with amount of bubbliness, from least to most:

perlant > ptillant > mousseux*

There is also blanquette de Limoux, which term ("blanquette") when not describing, say, a veal dish, is used only for that wine, though again, like clairette de Die, not really generalizable as a term for bubbly.

*N.b., Joe, no "a."
 
"blanquette" can also by a synonym for mauzac, so-called for the "fine white dust" on the underside of the leaves. This from Steven Spurrier by way of Ms. Robinson.

The Oxford Companion sez "mousseux" means sparkling, either via traditional or charmat process; no level of quality is inferred.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Perlant is the least fizzy. Mthode ancestrale has fewer bubbles and lower pressure. Mousseux has connotations of "cheap" and "placeless." I don't believe it's used in AOCs. Ptillant is standard and doesn't imply which practice (mthode champenoise, for instance). There is also crmant, and Clairette de Die is a sparkler, though since clairette is a grape, I don't think the term is interchangeable with bubbles.

ETA: Now I will go back and add all of the italics. Drat this whole analog system.
Click to expand...

A.O.C Bourgogne Mousseux Rouge established in 1943. No comment on the "cheapness" connotation (though I wonder for some French folks, anything other than Champagne connotes cheap).
 
Clairette de Die uses a particular process known as "methode dioise" which sounds suspiciously like the methode ancestrale and I have never been able to determine the difference. In any case "dioise" is a great word.

And Sharon is right, Mousseux isn't much used these days because it is synonymous with cheap. I believe it's Tom Stevenson's big Champagne/sparkling book that explains why this came to be.
 
time for a non champagne thread again

#1 landron atmospheres mthode traditionale...folle blanche and p noir....da shyte

#2 sierre du arques, limoux de blanqettee....if you want to see mausac in action, this is your chanc

#3 - puzelat gamay methode ancestrale...prob the best in the bunch...a gamay bubbly that kicks butt with all kinds of food
 
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