Formerly (and rarely still today) used term for the addition of sugar to grape must for the purpose of increasing the alcohol content. However, this does not mean sweetening the wine (as is often mistakenly understood), but merely increasing the sugar as a basis for the subsequent alcoholic fermentation.

The process is named after the French chemist Jean-Antoine Claude Chaptal (1756-1832), who was in favour of the process as Minister of Agriculture in France. Strictly speaking, chaptalisation usually refers to the addition of sucrose or beet sugar. Today, the term used for this is enrichment. However, this dry sugaring is only permitted within the EU with special authorisation (see sweetening).
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