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Sparkling wine and champagne

A 125 ml serving of sparkling wine and champagne carries about 11.8 g of pure ethanol — 1.5 UK units, 0.8 US standard drinks, 1.0 Estonian/Finnish units — and roughly 96 kcal.

Never use this page to decide whether to drive. Clearance is an estimate from a simplified model and varies with your liver, your genetics, your medicines, food, sleep and illness — real elimination rates differ between people by a factor of two, and the model does not know which end you are at. The only safe level of alcohol for driving is none, and a legal limit is not a safety threshold. If you have been drinking, do not drive.

Wine12.0% (11.0-13.0%)USDA basis: White wine

Sparkling wine is poured in smaller measures than still wine — a flute is typically 100 to 125 ml — so a single serving carries less ethanol than a standard glass of white. The strength is essentially the same, usually around 12%. All the difference is in the glass.

The dosage — the small amount of sugar added after disgorgement — is what separates the styles, and it is the one number this page cannot take from the reference database, because there is no sparkling-wine row in it. Brut styles are dry enough that the dry white wine row used here is a reasonable stand-in. Demi-sec and doux styles carry considerably more sugar than that row shows, and the page would rather say so than print a figure it cannot support.

The one thing that genuinely differs is the rate. Carbonation speeds gastric emptying, so the same amount of ethanol reaches the bloodstream faster from a sparkling wine than from a still one. That changes the peak, not the total: the Widmark estimate on this page models the total, and a faster start means the real peak is higher and earlier than any simple model suggests. It is one more reason the clearance figure is an estimate and not a permission slip.

By serving size

What the strength range does

Where the calories come from

The carbohydrate figure below is the USDA FoodData Central row for White wine — 2.6 g of carbohydrate (of which 1.0 g sugars) per 100 g — applied to 125 ml of this serving. USDA values are per 100 grams and this page applies them per 100 millilitres. Beer, wine and cider are close enough to the density of water for that to cost a per cent or two; spirits are lighter, so for them the approximation is worth about five per cent.

The reference database has no sparkling-wine row, so the dry white wine row is used as the nearest listed basis. It is a fair match for brut styles and understates sweeter demi-sec and doux ones, which carry noticeably more residual sugar.

As a cross-check, the same USDA row reports 82 kcal per 100 g, which scales to about 103 kcal for this serving against the 96 kcal computed above — a gap of about 6%. Two independent routes to the same figure will not land on the same digit: the reference row was measured on one specific product at one specific strength, this page uses the strength you would find on a typical label, and the per-100-g to per-100-ml conversion costs a little more. Where the gap is large, the strength assumption is almost always the reason.

Source: USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy (public domain) — row: White wine · checked 2026-09-02

What it costs in walking

This is an energy comparison and nothing more. Walking does not undo a drink: the ethanol still has to be metabolised, it is still prioritised over other fuels while it is in the system, and the effect it has on sleep that night is not cancelled by exercise the following morning. The number is here because it makes an abstract quantity concrete, not because it is a plan.

See brisk walking for where the MET value comes from, or the whole exercise library for other movements.

Source: 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities (Ainsworth et al.) — MET value for brisk walking · checked 2026-09-02

How many reach a weekly guideline

The 112 g line is the UK Chief Medical Officers' 14 units a week, quoted here because it is the guideline most often referenced in English. It is not the only one and it is not necessarily the one that applies to you: national low-risk guidance differs between countries, is written in different unit sizes, and has been revised downward in several places in recent years. Look up the guideline where you live and convert it with the table above.

Source: UK Chief Medical Officers' low risk drinking guidelines — named example only · checked 2026-09-02

Clearance estimate

Read those hours as the earliest plausible figure under a set of assumptions that will not all hold for you. Absorption is treated as instantaneous, so the model starts the clock too early. Elimination is treated as a fixed 0.15 ‰ an hour, when published individual rates run from roughly 0.10 to 0.20 — at the slow end, the last column takes a third longer than it says. And the whole calculation is for one dose taken at one moment, not for three drinks spread across an evening, which is the situation that actually produces a morning-after problem.

Never use this page to decide whether to drive. Clearance is an estimate from a simplified model and varies with your liver, your genetics, your medicines, food, sleep and illness — real elimination rates differ between people by a factor of two, and the model does not know which end you are at. The only safe level of alcohol for driving is none, and a legal limit is not a safety threshold. If you have been drinking, do not drive.

The thing people get wrong

The refill. Small glasses get topped up more often, and topped-up glasses are impossible to count.

Frequently asked questions

Other drinks

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