Skip to content

mousseux

sparkling wine

noun moo-SUH Rare

Usage Note

Mousseux (as a noun) refers to any sparkling wine that is not Champagne — for example a Crémant or a Cava sold in France. As an adjective it means 'frothy' or 'sparkling': une boisson mousseuse. Champagne is technically a mousseux, but referring to it that way is considered a social blunder in France.

Examples

"Ils ont trinqué avec un mousseux bon marché."

Natural Translation

They toasted with an inexpensive sparkling wine.

Free starter pack

Building your French vocabulary?

Get the 100 most common French words as a free PDF — one email, no spam.

Explore French by topic