New Year’s Toast Ahead: A Brief Encyclopedia of French Champagne

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BB.LV
Publiation data: 22.11.2025 09:39

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Small family farms that sold grapes to large houses gradually began to produce and sell champagne themselves.

Champagne is a natural choice for New Year’s for many. However, the price of a bottle of premium drink can reach hundreds of euros. How to choose a drink that suits both taste and budget?

Geographical Indication

In Champagne, there is only one Appellation d'Origine Controlee (AOC) — Champagne AOC, which, according to the Champagne committee, covers an area of 34,200 hectares.

The inscription "Champagne" on the bottle already indicates that you have a sparkling wine produced in France, either rosé or white, that meets all AOC production rules.

Categories of Producers

In Champagne, a system has historically developed in which two-thirds of all production and up to 90% of exports are held by merchant houses. Traditionally, these are champagne houses that do not own vineyards, purchasing grapes or still base wine from growers. Most often, this is done by the "grand marques" (Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, or Dom Perignon and others), whose important achievement is marketing, which has led many to perceive champagne as a prestigious and expensive drink. Bottles from such producers will always be marked with the inscription "Negociant manipulant, NM."

However, small family farms that sold grapes to large houses gradually began to produce and sell champagne themselves. Some of them have achieved worldwide fame. Bottles from such farms are marked with the inscription "récoltant." Their wines can be recognized by the abbreviations RM, RC, SR on the labels.

RM (Recoltant manipulant) — boutique récoltants, grape growers who make champagne from their own grapes.

RC (Recoltant-cooperateur) — a union of grape growers who jointly cultivate grapes and sell wine under their own brand.

SR (Societe de recoltants) — a community of grape growers who produce champagne together from their own grapes but are not part of a large cooperative and sell wine under their own label.

A few more categories of champagne:

CM (Cooperative de manipulation) — cooperative production and sale of champagne from grapes of members and purchased grapes;

ND (Negociant distributeur) — a distributor who buys ready-made bottled champagne and sells it under their own brand;

MA (Marque d'Acheteur) — a private brand produced exclusively for one client (for example, a supermarket chain).

Vintage Year

How is champagne produced? Non-vintage brut is an assemblage of wines from different harvest years. In such wine, each house maintains a stable level of quality and, in essence, the same recognizable taste. The vintage year is not indicated on the front label of the champagne.

However, if the year was exceptional, the champagne house may decide to release wine made from grapes of only one single year. In this case, it marks its label with the year — such champagne is called vintage. Vintage champagne is made from grapes of one special successful harvest year.

Therefore, if you are choosing between a bottle with a label without a year and a label that indicates the vintage year, and you prefer the latter, be prepared for it to cost several times more compared to the former.

Grape Varieties

Officially, for a long time, seven grape varieties were allowed in Champagne, to which two more have recently been added. Historically, classic champagne is made from three grape varieties: white "Chardonnay" and black "Pinot Noir" and "Pinot Meunier." Sometimes a winemaker may change this scheme and make champagne only from, for example, "Chardonnay," ignoring the other two black varieties, or, conversely, produce only black varieties.

Blanc de Blancs — champagne made only from white grape varieties. Usually, this wine is 100% "Chardonnay," although Blanc de Blancs can also be made with the involvement of other permitted white varieties. For example, there are, although rarely, Blanc de Blancs made from 100% "Pinot Blanc."

Blanc de Noirs — champagne made only from black varieties — "Pinot Noir" and "Pinot Meunier."

The remaining four varieties: "Pinot Gris," "Pinot Blanc," "Arban," and "Petit Meslier" are used by each winemaker at their discretion. The two new varieties, the hybrid Voltis and the pink mutation of "Chardonnay," are currently used as experimental material.

Rosé — a popular and rapidly growing category of champagne. In Champagne, rosé wines can only be produced in two ways:

by adding 5–20% of still red wine to white wine at the assemblage stage (this is the most commonly used method);
by the saignée method (short maceration of black grapes on the skins before pressing).

Categories of Champagne by Sugar Content

Historically, champagne was significantly sweeter than modern wine. The high level of added sugar was partly due to the need to "smooth out" the deficiencies of grape ripeness, as well as the demand from export markets. Then the amount of sugar began to gradually decrease until the category "brut" appeared, which eventually became the main category.

The official sweetness scale of champagne includes seven levels. The first three contain virtually no sugar; these are very dry wines:

Brut Nature / Brut Zero — 0–3 g/l of sugar;

Extra Brut — 0–6 g/l of sugar;

Brut — 0–12 g/l of sugar (usually 6–8 g/l, sometimes up to 10 g/l).

There are also sweeter options, but they are rare:

Extra-Sec — 12–17 g/l of sugar;

Sec — 17–32 g/l of sugar;

Demi-sec — 32–50 g/l of sugar;

Doux — up to 50 g/l of sugar.