Champagne
Cool continental
France's northerly sparkling-wine appellation, where Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grown on chalk are turned into wine by the traditional method.
Overview
About Champagne
Champagne is a protected appellation in north-eastern France, centred on the cities of Reims and Épernay and running south into the Aube. Its main areas are the Montagne de Reims and the Vallée de la Marne (both leaning Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier), the Côte des Blancs (almost entirely Chardonnay) and the Côte des Bar in the Aube.
The wine is made by the traditional method: a base wine is bottled with sugar and yeast, and a second fermentation in the bottle creates the bubbles. Non-vintage Champagne must be aged for at least 15 months, and vintage Champagne for at least three years; many houses far exceed that. The chalk cellars beneath Reims and Épernay, along with the hillsides and the houses, were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2015.
Champagne is marked on the map.
France
Shaded: Marne, Aube, Aisne. Map units are states, provinces or départements, so a smaller place appears as the larger area that contains it.
The land
Climate & terroir
Climate
Cool continental
One of France's most northerly wine regions. It is cool, with marginal ripening and high natural acidity — ideal for sparkling base wines — but also exposed to spring frost and variable summers, which is why non-vintage blends draw on reserve wines from earlier years.
Terroir & soils
What the vines grow in
A subsoil of Cretaceous chalk across much of the region, which drains well while storing water for the vines and reflects light and heat. The Aube's Côte des Bar has Kimmeridgian marl, like Chablis.
Go deeper
Rules, years & producers
Champagne is a single appellation, so the labels that matter are the village rating, the sweetness and the type of cuvée.
Grand Cru villages
Seventeen villages, historically rated 100% on the échelle des crus, mostly in the Montagne de Reims and Côte des Blancs.
Premier Cru villages
Forty-two villages rated 90 to 99%.
Non-vintage and vintage
Non-vintage must be aged at least 15 months, vintage at least three years. Prestige cuvées are the houses' top wines.
Sweetness
From Brut Nature and Extra Brut (driest) through Brut, the standard, to Demi-Sec and Doux.
What's grown here
Grapes
Each grape's page links back here.
Chardonnay
A core blending grape, and the sole variety in Blanc de Blancs sparkling wine.
Petit Meslier
Tiny plantings, used in a few growers' sparkling blends for their acidity.
Pinot Meunier
Adds fruit and early roundness to blends, and is the core of the Vallée de la Marne.
Pinot Noir
A key blending component, with Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier, in traditional-method sparkling wine.