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Champagne is a sparkling wine produced by inducing the in-bottle secondary fermentation of the wine to effect carbonation. It is produced exclusively within the Champagne region of France, from which it takes its name.

The primary grapes used in the production of Champagne are Pinot noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier. Most countries limit the use of the term Champagne to only those wines that come from the Champagne appellation. In Europe, Champagne has Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status.

Other countries, such as the United States, have recognized the exclusive nature of the name, Champagne, yet allow certain domestic producers of sparkling wine to continue to use the term "champagne". The majority of US-produced sparkling wines do not use the term "champagne" on their labels, some use the terminology Champagne Method, or Methode Champagnoise.

Champagne first gained world renown because of its association with the anointment of French kings.

Champagne is a single Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée. As a general rule, grapes used must be the white Chardonnay, or the dark-skinned "red wine grapes" Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier. Most Champagnes are made from a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, for example 60%/40%. Blanc de blanc ("white from white") Champagnes are made from 100% Chardonnay. Blanc de noir ("white from black") Champagne is pressed from Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier or a mix of the two.

Four other grape varieties are permitted, mostly for historical reasons, as they are rare in current usage. The 2010 version of the appellation regulations lists seven varieties as allowed, Arbanne, Chardonnay, Petit Meslier, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Meunier, and Pinot Noir.[24] The sparsely cultivated varieties (0.02% of the total vines planted in Champagne) of Arbanne, Petit Meslier and Pinot Blanc, might still be found in modern cuvées from a few producers.[25] Previous directives of INAO make conditional allowances according to the complex laws of 1927 and 1929, and plantings made prior to 1938.[26] Before the 2010 regulations, the complete list of the actual and theoretical varieties also included Pinot de Juillet and Pinot Rosé.[27] The Gamay vines of the region were scheduled to be uprooted by 1942, but due to World War II, this was postponed until 1962,[28] and this variety is not allowed in Champagne today.[24]

Types of Champagne

Most of the Champagne produced today is "Non-vintage", meaning that it is a blended product of grapes from multiple vintages. Most of the base will be from a single year vintage with producers blending anywhere from 10–15% (even as high as 40%) of wine from older vintages.[18] If the conditions of a particular vintage are favorable, some producers will make a "Vintage" wine that must be composed of at least 85% of the grapes from vintage year.[29] Under Champagne wine regulations, houses that make both vintage and non-vintage wines are allowed to use no more than 80% of the total vintage's harvest for the production of vintage Champagne. This allows at least 20% of the harvest from each vintage to be reserved for use in non-vintage Champagne. This ensures a consistent style that consumers can expect from non-vintage Champagne that doesn't alter too radically depending on the quality of the vintage. In less than ideal vintages, some producers will produce a wine from only that single vintage and still label it as non-vintage rather than as "vintage" since the wine will be of lesser quality and the producers have little desire to reserve the wine for future blending.[18]

Prestige cuvée

A cuvée de prestige is a proprietary blended wine (usually a Champagne) that is considered to be the top of a producer's range. Famous examples include Louis Roederer's Cristal, Laurent-Perrier's Grand Siècle, Moët & Chandon's Dom Pérignon, Duval-Leroy's Cuvée Femme and Pol Roger's Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill. Perhaps the original prestige cuvée was Moët & Chandon's Dom Pérignon, launched in 1936 with the 1921 vintage. Until then, Champagne houses produced different cuvées of varying quality, but a top-of-the-range wine produced to the highest standards (and priced accordingly) was a new idea. In fact, Louis Roederer had been producing Cristal since 1876, but this was strictly for the private consumption of the Russian tsar. Cristal was made publicly available with the 1945 vintage. Then came Taittinger's Comtes de Champagne (first vintage 1952), and Laurent-Perrier's Grand Siècle 'La Cuvée' in 1960, a blend of three vintages (1952, 1953, and 1955)& Perrier Jouet's 'La Belle Epoque'. In the last three decades of the 20th century, most Champagne houses followed these with their own prestige cuvées, often named after notable people with a link to that producer (Veuve Clicquot's La Grande Dame, the nickname of the widow of the house's founder's son; Pol Roger's Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill, named for the British prime minister; and Laurent-Perrier's Cuvée Alexandra rosé, to name just three examples), and presented in non-standard bottle shapes (following Dom Pérignon's lead with its 18th-century revival design).

Blanc de noirs

A French term (literally "white of blacks") for a white wine produced entirely from black grapes. Black, or red, grapes have a white flesh and grape juice obtained after minimal possible contact with the skins produces white wine, the color of which is offset by the small amount of red skin pigments and turns into lighter shades of yellow, often described as white-yellow, white-grey, or silvery. It is often encountered in Champagne, where a number of houses have followed the lead of Bollinger's prestige cuvée Vieilles Vignes Françaises in introducing a cuvée made from either Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier or a blend of the two (these being the only two black grapes permitted within the Champagne AOC appellation). Although Bollinger's wine is famed for its intense richness and full-bodied nature, this has more to do with the way the grapes are planted and when they are harvested than any intrinsic property of blanc de noirs Champagne, which is often little different from cuvées including a proportion of Chardonnay.[18]

Blanc de blancs

A French term that means "white of whites", and is used to designate Champagnes made exclusively from Chardonnay grapes. The term is occasionally used in other sparkling wine-producing regions, usually to denote Chardonnay-only wines rather than any sparkling wine made from other white grape varieties.[18] A famous example is Ruinart.

Rosé Champagne

The rosé wines of Champagne are produced either by leaving the clear juice of black grapes to macerate on its skins for a brief time (known as the saigneé method) or, more commonly, by adding a small amount of still Pinot noir red wine to the sparkling wine cuvee. Champagne is typically light in color even if it is produced with red grapes, because the juice is extracted from the grapes using a gentle process that minimizes the amount of time the juice spends in contact with the skins, which is what gives red wine its color. Rosé Champagne is one of the few wines that allows the production of Rosé by the addition a small amount of red wine during blending. This ensures a predictable and reproducible color, allowing a constant Rosé color from year-to-year.[18]

Due to the comparatively high risk and cost of using the saigneé or 'skin contact only' technique, there are very few producers who habitually do not add any additional red wine. These include Laurent Perrier, Louis Roederer, and Guy Charbaut

Sweetness

The amount of sugar (dosage) added after the second fermentation and aging varies and will dictate the sweetness level of the Champagne.

• * Brut Natural or Brut Zéro (less than 3 grams of sugar per liter)
• * Extra Brut (less than 6 grams of sugar per liter)
• * Brut (less than 12 grams of sugar per liter)