The region and its chalk
Champagne comes from one appellation only, recognised on 29 June 1936 within a perimeter drawn by a law of 1927. It spreads over some 320 villages, called crus, in five departments, mostly the Marne, then the Aube and the Aisne. Most of the rock is limestone. Chalk is porous and holds 300 to 400 litres of water per cubic metre, so the vines find water in dry summers while their roots stay well drained. On 4 July 2015, the same day as the climats of Burgundy, UNESCO inscribed the Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars on the World Heritage List.
Four main areas share the vineyard. The Montagne de Reims, a wooded headland around Reims, is mostly Pinot Noir. The Marne Valley grows Pinot Noir in the east, near Épernay, and Meunier further west. The Côte des Blancs takes its name from Chardonnay, which suits its chalk slopes. The Côte des Bar, south-east of Troyes, is planted mainly with Pinot Noir.
The three grapes
Pinot Noir gives Champagne body and structure, with red fruit and flowers. Chardonnay brings freshness, floral and citrus notes, and wines that age well. Meunier buds later, so it suffers less from frost, and it suits the clay soils of the Marne Valley. It adds roundness and fruit, and its wines tend to age faster.
From the press to the cellar
Whole clusters are pressed gently, separately by grape and by village. The still wines are then blended across grapes, villages and, for most cuvées, years. A mix of wine, sugar and yeast sets off a second fermentation in the bottle, where the wine then rests on its lees, the spent yeast, which slowly add aromas. By law, a non-vintage Champagne spends at least 15 months in the cellar and a vintage at least three years; in practice, the Comité Champagne counts two to three years for non-vintage and four to ten for vintage wines. After disgorgement, a dosage of cane sugar dissolved in wine sets the final sweetness.
Reading the label
Most Champagne is non-vintage: a blend of several years, drawing on reserve wines, that keeps the style of its producer from one release to the next. A vintage Champagne comes from a single year and holds no reserve wine. Blanc de blancs is made from white grapes only, usually Chardonnay; blanc de noirs from black grapes only, Pinot Noir, Meunier or both. A rosé gets its colour either by macerating black grapes or by adding some red Champagne wine to the white before the second fermentation. The sweetness is stated on every label, in grams of sugar per litre: brut nature, also called pas dosé or dosage zéro, has less than 3 and no added sugar; extra brut 0 to 6; brut less than 12; extra dry 12 to 17; sec 17 to 32; demi-sec 32 to 50; doux more than 50. The label also names the producer and the village where it is registered. A code gives its status: RM for a grower who makes Champagne only from its own grapes, NM for a house that buys grapes, musts or wines.
Growers, houses and the rank of the villages
Our grower Champagne page gathers growers who make wine from their own vines. On the Montagne de Reims they include Egly-Ouriet, Marguet and Éric Rodez in Ambonnay, Hugues Godmé in Verzenay, David Léclapart in Trépail and Émilien Feneuil in Sermiers, Chamery and Écueil. Aurélien Suenen works in Cramant on the Côte des Blancs and R. Pouillon et Fils at Mareuil-sur-Aÿ in the Marne Valley. Salima and Alain Cordeuil farm in the Côte des Bar, where Clandestin works as a small négociant with organic growers.
The great houses blend grapes from across the region. Bollinger is in Aÿ and Jacquesson in Dizy; Louis Roederer, Ruinart, Taittinger and Veuve Clicquot are in Reims, and Perrier-Jouët is in Épernay. Dom Pérignon is the vintage-only Champagne of Moët & Chandon.
In Champagne the rank belongs to the village. A scale of crus, first made official in 1911, came to rate each village from 80 to 100 percent. A decree of 1 July 1952 reserved the words grand cru for villages rated 100 percent and premier cru for those rated 90 percent or more. The INAO withdrew the scale in 2010, but the villages kept their rank. There are 17 grand cru villages, Ambonnay, Aÿ, Cramant and Verzenay among them, and 42 premier cru villages such as Trépail, Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, Dizy and Écueil.
Keeping and serving
As a Champagne matures over three to ten years, notes of brioche, dried fruit, honey and caramel appear; older wines move towards quince paste, gingerbread, undergrowth, toast and coffee. Keep bottles in a cellar between 10 and 15°C, where it does not matter whether they stand or lie down. Chill a bottle at the bottom of the fridge a few hours before serving, and pour it into a fairly tall, tulip-shaped glass. Champagne comes in a wider range of bottle sizes than any other wine, from the 20 centilitre quarter to the 30 litre Melchizedek, and magnums are common: see our large formats. Older Champagnes, fifteen years and more, are among our collector wines. The wines above are the Champagnes of our cellar.
