Learn Champagne

Glossary

The language of Champagne, from assemblage to vendange.

Regions

Coteaux Sud d'Épernay: The hillsides immediately south of Épernay, including Pierry, Moussy, Chavot-Courcourt and Vinay. A mix of all three main grapes, with Meunier playing a significant role.
Crayères: The chalk pits dug beneath Reims, many dating back to Gallo-Roman times. Several houses use them as cellars, where the stable, cool temperature is ideal for long ageing.
Côte des Bar: The southern part of the appellation in the Aube department, closer to Chablis than to Reims. Its Kimmeridgian marl soils and Pinot Noir give fuller, rounder wines than the chalk-based north.
Côte des Blancs: The east-facing chalk slope running south from Épernay, planted almost entirely to Chardonnay. Home to six Grand Cru villages, including Cramant, Avize, Oger and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger.
Grande Vallée de la Marne: The heart of the Vallée de la Marne around Aÿ, Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, Dizy, Hautvillers and Cumières. South-facing slopes and a strong Pinot Noir tradition.
Montagne de Reims: The wooded plateau and its surrounding slopes between Reims and Épernay. Best known for Pinot Noir, it holds nine of Champagne's seventeen Grand Cru villages, with the north-facing slopes around Verzenay and Mailly producing some of the region's most structured fruit.
Montgueux: An isolated chalk hill west of Troyes, planted mainly to Chardonnay. Known for unusually ripe, exotic Chardonnay.
Sézannais: The area around Sézanne, south of the Côte des Blancs. Largely Chardonnay on clay and chalk soils, giving riper, softer wines. Also called the Côte de Sézanne.
Vallée de la Marne: The vineyards along the Marne river, running west from Épernay towards Château-Thierry. Meunier dominates in the west, while the Grande Vallée around Aÿ is Pinot Noir country.

Grapes

41B: Chasselas crossed with Vitis berlandieri, and with SO4 the dominant rootstock in Champagne. Tolerates about 40% active lime, but its vinifera parent leaves it less phylloxera-resistant than a pure American cross.
Accolage: Tying the lifted shoots into the wires, the companion operation to relevage.
Ampélographie: Ampelography: identifying grape varieties from the shape and hairiness of the shoot tip, leaves and bunches. Descriptors favour traits that vary little with the season.
Aoûtement: Lignification: the green shoot turning brown and woody in late summer, which is what allows it to survive the winter and serve as fruiting wood.
Arbane: A rare white grape permitted in Champagne. Only a handful of hectares remain.
Arcure: Arching a long cane. It evens out sap flow against apical dominance, so the buds along the cane burst evenly; the rules allow two extra buds on an arched cane.
Baguette: A long cane left at pruning to carry the season's crop, as in Guyot or the taille de la vallée de la Marne.
Bois noir: A phytoplasma whose symptoms are almost indistinguishable from flavescence dorée, but carried by Hyalesthes obsoletus from weed hosts and not subject to compulsory control. Telling the two apart decides whether a grower must act under law.
Calcaire actif: Active lime: the fine, chemically reactive carbonate fraction of a soil. The figure against which a rootstock's tolerance is rated; 41B copes with around 40%.
Cep: The vine stock: the trunk and permanent wood of a single plant, as distinct from the season's green growth.
Chablis (training system): A short-pruning system in which the vine carries several permanent arms, each ending in a spur. Traditional in the Côte des Blancs and particularly suited to Chardonnay.
Chardonnay: The white grape behind Blanc de Blancs. Brings finesse, acidity, citrus and floral notes, and ages slowly. Dominant in the Côte des Blancs, Sézannais and Montgueux.
Chardonnay Rose: A natural pink-skinned mutation of Chardonnay, first identified in the early twentieth century and added to the Champagne appellation rules in 2025. In the vineyard and the cellar it behaves much like Chardonnay, but its skins hold too little pigment to make rosé on its own.
Charpente: A permanent arm of old wood. Taille Chablis is built on three to five charpentes trained low along the row.
Chlorose: Chlorosis: active lime raises the pH around the roots and locks up iron, so the vine cannot make chlorophyll. The leaves yellow between the veins and ripening suffers.
Cochylis: Eupoecilia ambiguella, the second grape berry moth, controlled in Champagne by the same pheromone mating disruption as eudémis.
Confusion sexuelle: Mating disruption: pheromone diffusers saturate the air so male moths cannot locate females. Champagne is France's leading region for the technique, and has almost eliminated insecticide treatments as a result.
Cordon de Royat: A short-pruning system on a single permanent cordon, with spurs along its length. Widespread for Pinot Noir.
Coulure: Failed fruit set. Flowers or very young berries drop off, usually after cold or wet weather at flowering, leaving a sparse bunch. A loss of volume rather than quality.
Courson: A spur: fruiting wood cut back to only two or three buds, as used in Cordon de Royat.
Court-noué: Fanleaf degeneration, a virus spread by the soil nematode Xiphinema index. It deforms the leaves and ruins fruit set, and survives in the soil after the vines are grubbed.
Débourrement: Budbreak, usually April in Champagne. The buds open and the first green shoots appear, which is also the moment the crop becomes vulnerable to spring frost.
Enroulement: Leafroll virus. The leaves roll downward and redden, ripening is delayed and sugar falls. Spread by mealybugs and scale insects rather than by soil.
Esca: A fungal trunk disease that colonises the vine's permanent wood, usually entering through pruning wounds. There is no treatment, so pruning that keeps cuts small is the main defence.
Eudémis: Lobesia botrana, one of the two grape berry moths. Its larvae bore into the berries and open the way for botrytis.
Eutypiose: Eutypa dieback: a wood disease that kills the vine's structure from the inside, showing in stunted, deformed shoots in spring.
Fercal: A rootstock bred for extreme chlorosis resistance, with a chlorosing power index tolerance far above 41B's. Little used in Champagne, because the chalk does not demand it.
Flavescence dorée: A quarantine phytoplasma carried by the leafhopper Scaphoideus titanus. Monitoring, insecticide treatment in contaminated zones and the grubbing of infected vines are all compulsory. Champagne recorded 42 newly contaminated communes in 2025.
Floraison: Flowering, usually June. Weather during flowering determines how many berries each bunch can carry, and so much of the eventual crop size.
Fromenteau: The traditional Champagne name for Pinot Gris, one of the permitted minor varieties.
Greffon: Scion: the fruiting variety grafted on top of the rootstock. Everything above the graft point is Chardonnay, Pinot Noir or Meunier.
Guyot: A long-cane pruning system, in simple or double form, permitted for all grape varieties in Champagne.
Guyot asymétrique: The least discussed of Champagne's permitted pruning forms: a renewal spur of up to two buds with a lancement and an extension of up to six buds each.
IPC: Indice de pouvoir chlorosant, the chlorosing power index. It weighs a soil's active lime against the iron actually available, so it predicts chlorosis risk better than lime content alone.
Mating disruption: Using pheromones to confuse insect pests so they cannot breed. Widely used in Champagne, it has largely removed the need for insecticides.
Meunier: The third main grape, formerly called Pinot Meunier. Buds late and ripens early, so it copes well with frost-prone sites. Gives fruit and suppleness, and is increasingly bottled on its own. Dominant in the Vallée de la Marne.
Mildiou: Downy mildew, Plasmopara viticola. It needs free water on the leaf to infect, and shows as translucent oil spots above with white down beneath.
Millerandage: Uneven berry development within one bunch, mixing normal berries with small seedless ones. It reduces yield but raises the ratio of skin to juice.
Nouaison: Fruit set: the point at which fertilised flowers become berries.
Oïdium: Powdery mildew, Erysiphe necator. Grey-white dust on leaves and berries. Unlike downy mildew it needs no free water, so it can flourish in a dry warm season.
Petit Meslier: A rare white grape permitted in Champagne, valued for its high acidity. Only a handful of hectares remain.
Pinot Blanc: A white grape permitted in Champagne, most common in the Côte des Bar.
Pinot Noir: The black grape that gives body, structure and red fruit. Dominant in the Montagne de Reims and the Côte des Bar.
Point de greffe: The graft union between rootstock and scion, kept above soil level so the scion cannot put down roots of its own and expose itself to phylloxera.
Porte-greffe: Rootstock: the American-derived root system a Champagne vine is grafted onto, chosen above all for its tolerance of the active lime in chalk.
Rachet: A short renewal spur, cut to about two buds and kept to produce the following year's fruiting wood.
Rafle: The rachis: the woody stem that holds a bunch together. Champagne presses whole clusters, so the rafle stays in the press and helps the juice drain.
Rameau: A green shoot of the current season, before lignification turns it into a sarment.
Relevage: Lifting the growing shoots between the trellis wires so the canopy forms a vertical wall rather than sprawling into the row.
Rognage: Trimming the top and sides of the canopy through the season. Trimming too hard removes the leaf area the fruit needs to reach its potential alcohol.
SO4: Selection Oppenheim 4, Vitis berlandieri × Vitis riparia. Tolerates about 17% active lime with medium vigour, and is favoured in Champagne where soils turn sandier.
Sarment: A cane: the shoot of the past season after it has turned woody. At pruning the grower chooses which sarments become next year's fruiting wood.
Sinus pétiolaire: The petiolar sinus: the notch where the leaf stalk meets the blade. Open with bare veins on Chardonnay, closed or overlapping on Pinot Noir, it is the first thing an ampelographer checks.
Sélection clonale: Clonal selection: multiplying a single mother vine so every plant is genetically identical. Delivers uniformity and certified freedom from virus, at the cost of diversity.
Sélection massale: Massale selection: taking cuttings from many chosen vines in a grower's own parcels, keeping the planting genetically varied and the harvest window wider.
Taille (pruning): Pruning of the vine, regulated in Champagne since 1938. Four systems are permitted: Chablis and Cordon de Royat (short pruning), Guyot (long-cane pruning) and Vallée de la Marne (a mixed system).
Taille de la vallée de la Marne: A long-cane pruning system with a baguette of up to nine buds, permitted for Meunier only. It suits the frost-prone valley floors where Meunier is planted.
Tomentum: The mat of fine hairs on a leaf surface. Its density is a stable varietal trait, and the thick white tomentum on the underside of Meunier's leaves is what gives the variety its name.
Vallée de la Marne (training system): A mixed pruning system combining a long cane with spurs. It is the only system reserved for Meunier.
Voltis: A disease-resistant white hybrid variety approved for trial use in Champagne to reduce the need for fungicide treatments. Its planting and share of the blend are strictly limited.
Ébourgeonnage: Disbudding: removing unwanted buds or young shoots in spring, to control the crop and open up the canopy before the season builds.
Épamprage: Removing the suckers that grow from the trunk and base of the vine, so the vine's resources go to the fruiting shoots.
Œil franc: A true bud. The appellation's limit of 18 buds per square metre is counted in yeux francs, which is what makes winter pruning a legal act as well as a technical one.

Viticulture

Belemnite chalk: Chalk formed from the fossilised remains of belemnites, a squid-like marine creature. Found on the upper slopes of the Côte des Blancs and the Montagne de Reims, and considered the finest subsoil in Champagne.
Chalk: The defining soil of northern Champagne. Porous chalk holds water like a sponge and releases it slowly to the vine, while its brightness reflects heat. Associated with tension and minerality in the wine.
Clos: A walled vineyard. Famous examples include Krug's Clos du Mesnil and Philipponnat's Clos des Goisses.
Coccolith: A tiny calcite plate from a marine micro-organism. Champagne's chalk is built from coccoliths, which make it porous enough to hold 300 to 400 litres of water per cubic metre.
Kimmeridgian marl: A limestone and clay soil rich in fossilised oyster shells, shared with Chablis and Sancerre. The dominant soil of the Côte des Bar.
Lieu-dit: A named vineyard site within a village. Increasingly printed on labels as growers bottle single-site wines.
MATU network: The Comité Champagne's network, running since 1955, that monitors grape ripeness by variety and commune to help set harvest dates.
Viticulture Durable en Champagne: Champagne's own sustainability certification, introduced in 2014. Often shortened to VDC.

Production

Assemblage: Blending of base wines from different grapes, villages and years. The central craft of Champagne and the basis of house style.
Autolysis: The breakdown of dead yeast cells during ageing on the lees. Gives bread, brioche and pastry notes and a creamier texture.
Brassage: Shaking the bottle after corking so the dosage mixes evenly into the wine.
Coquard press: The traditional vertical basket press used in Champagne, named after its best-known maker.
Cuvée (pressing): The first and finest juice from a pressing: 2,050 litres from a 4,000 kg marc. Purer and higher in acidity than the taille.
Disgorgement date: The date the wine was disgorged. More producers now print it on the label, since the time spent after disgorgement changes how the wine tastes.
Dosage: The amount of sugar added in the liqueur d'expédition, measured in grams per litre. It determines the style category on the label, from Brut Nature to Doux.
Débourbage: Settling of the freshly pressed juice so that solids fall to the bottom before fermentation.
Dégorgement: Disgorgement: removing the sediment from the neck of the bottle before dosage and final corking.
Dégorgement à la glace: Disgorgement by freezing the neck of the bottle so the sediment is ejected as a plug of ice. The standard modern method.
Dégorgement à la volée: Disgorgement by hand without freezing the neck, relying on the skill of the cellar worker. Still used by a few producers, often for large formats.
Gyropalette: A machine that riddles a large cage of bottles at once. It has replaced hand riddling for most production.
Liqueur d'expédition: The mixture of wine and sugar added after disgorgement to set the final sweetness level.
Liqueur de tirage: A mixture of wine, sugar and yeast added at bottling to trigger the second fermentation.
Malolactic fermentation: A bacterial conversion of sharp malic acid into softer lactic acid. Most houses allow it; some block it to preserve tension and freshness. It is one of the key style choices in Champagne.
Marc: A load of 4,000 kg of whole grapes, the standard unit for a Champagne pressing.
Perpetual reserve: A reserve wine topped up each year with the new harvest, in the manner of a solera, so it contains a fraction of every vintage since it began. Also called réserve perpétuelle.
Prise de mousse: The second fermentation in bottle, which produces the carbon dioxide and the bubbles.
Pupitre: The wooden A-frame rack used for hand riddling.
Rebêche: The final pressing beyond the permitted volume. It may not be used to make Champagne and is sent for distillation.
Remuage: Riddling: gradually turning and tilting the bottles so the sediment collects in the neck. Developed at Veuve Clicquot in the early nineteenth century.
Reserve wine: Wine kept back from earlier harvests for use in future non-vintage blends. It gives depth and helps keep house style consistent across years.
Retroussage: Breaking up the cake of pressed grapes and moving it back to the centre of the press between pressings, so extraction stays gentle and even.
Sur lattes: Bottles ageing horizontally on their lees after the second fermentation.
Taille (pressing): The 500 litres pressed after the cuvée from a 4,000 kg marc. It carries more colour, phenolics and potassium than the cuvée, with lower acidity and a higher pH. Used well it adds body and early-drinking fruit to a blend; some producers leave it out of their top wines.
Tirage: Bottling of the blended base wine with the liqueur de tirage, sealed with a crown cap.
Transvasage: Transferring finished Champagne from the bottle it fermented in to a different bottle size. Only permitted for certain small and very large formats.
Vins clairs: The still base wines produced after the first fermentation, before blending and bottling.
Vins de l'année: Base wines from the most recent harvest. In a blend they bring freshness and the character of the year, while reserve wines bring depth and consistency.

Styles

Blanc de Blancs: Champagne made only from white grapes, in practice almost always Chardonnay.
Blanc de Noirs: White Champagne made only from black grapes: Pinot Noir, Meunier or both.
Brut: Less than 12 grams of sugar per litre. The most common style.
Brut Nature: Less than 3 grams of sugar per litre, with no dosage added. Also labelled Pas Dosé or Dosage Zéro.
Coteaux Champenois: The appellation for still red, white and rosé wine from the Champagne region.
Cuvée de prestige: A house's top wine, made from its best fruit and aged longer. Examples include Dom Pérignon, Cristal and Comtes de Champagne.
Demi-Sec: Between 32 and 50 grams of sugar per litre.
Doux: More than 50 grams of sugar per litre.
Extra Brut: Between 0 and 6 grams of sugar per litre.
Extra Dry: Between 12 and 17 grams of sugar per litre.
Gerbage: Sudden foaming when a bottle is opened, usually because the wine is too warm or has been handled roughly. It does not affect quality.
Goût de lumière: Light strike: an off-flavour caused by exposing Champagne to light. The reason Champagne is kept in the dark.
Millésime: Vintage Champagne, made from a single declared harvest.
Mono-cru: Champagne made from a single village. Usually non-vintage, sometimes vintage, Blanc de Blancs, Blanc de Noirs or rosé.
Non-vintage: Champagne blended from several harvests, usually built on one main year with reserve wines added. Also called sans année or multi-vintage.
Oxidative style: Winemaking that allows controlled contact with oxygen, often through oak. Gives nutty, broader, more developed wines.
Reductive style: Winemaking that protects the wine from oxygen, usually in stainless steel. Gives fresher, more precise wines with primary fruit.
Rosé d'assemblage: Rosé made by blending a little still red wine into white base wine. Champagne is the only French appellation where this is permitted for rosé.
Rosé de saignée: Rosé made by macerating black grapes briefly on their skins before running off the coloured juice. Also called rosé de macération.
Rosé des Riceys: A still rosé made from Pinot Noir in the commune of Les Riceys, and a separate appellation of its own.
Sec: Between 17 and 32 grams of sugar per litre.
Tulip glass: A tall, bulbous glass that narrows at the top. The recommended shape for Champagne, as it gathers the aromas and lets the bubbles rise freely.

Law & Classification

AOC Champagne: The protected appellation covering sparkling wine from the delimited Champagne region, made by the traditional method. Recognised as an AOC in 1936.
CM: Coopérative de Manipulation. A cooperative that makes and sells Champagne under its own brand from its members' grapes.
Comité Champagne: The interprofessional body representing both growers and houses, founded in 1941. It manages the appellation, sets the annual yield, funds research, protects the Champagne name worldwide and trains professionals. Also known as the CIVC.
Grand Cru: The highest village classification: the seventeen villages rated 100 percent on the échelle des crus. A Grand Cru label means all grapes come from these villages.
Interprofessional reserve: The collective system under which producers set aside wine from generous harvests and release it in short ones, keeping supply steady from year to year. Not to be confused with the reserve wines a producer keeps for its own blends.
MA: Marque d'Acheteur. A buyer's own brand, such as a supermarket or restaurant label, made by another producer.
Méthode traditionnelle: The method of making sparkling wine by second fermentation in the bottle. The term méthode champenoise may only be used for Champagne itself.
ND: Négociant-Distributeur. A company that buys finished Champagne and sells it under its own name.
NM: Négociant-Manipulant. A house that buys grapes, must or wine and makes Champagne under its own name. All the major houses carry this code.
Premier Cru: The second village classification: the villages rated 90 to 99 percent on the échelle des crus. A Premier Cru label means all grapes come from Premier Cru or Grand Cru villages.
RC: Récoltant-Coopérateur. A grower who sells Champagne under their own label, made for them by a cooperative.
RM: Récoltant-Manipulant. A grower who makes and sells Champagne from their own grapes. Often called grower Champagne.
Rendement: Yield. Two figures have to be kept apart: the cahier des charges fixes the appellation yield at 12,400 kg of grapes per hectare with a rendement butoir of 15,500 kg, while the Comité Champagne separately sets each year how much of the crop may be made into Champagne, according to the harvest and the market.
Réserve individuelle: A quantity of wine each producer may hold back from a good harvest and release in a later, smaller one, to smooth out variation between years.
SR: Société de Récoltants. A company set up by members of a grower family to make and sell Champagne from their pooled grapes.
Wine Origins Alliance: A coalition of wine regions formed in 2005 to protect wine place names. Champagne is a founding member.
Échelle des crus: The historic scale that rated each village between 80 and 100 percent to set the price of its grapes. It no longer governs prices, but its top two tiers survive as the Grand Cru and Premier Cru village classifications.

Business

Chef de cave: The cellar master, responsible for the blends and the house style.
Cooperative: A collective of growers that presses, makes or sells wine for its members. Some sell grapes and juice to houses, others make Champagne under their own brand.
Grower Champagne: Champagne made by the people who grow the grapes, as opposed to houses that buy much of their fruit. Usually identified by the RM code.
Maison: A Champagne house. Houses own only a small share of the vineyards and buy most of their grapes from growers.
Vigneron: A grape grower. Growers own the large majority of Champagne's vineyards.

History

1911 Champagne riots: Uprisings by growers in the Marne and the Aube, triggered by fraud, poor harvests and disputes over which areas could use the Champagne name. They led to the delimitation of the appellation.
Dom Pérignon: The seventeenth-century Benedictine monk and cellar master at the Abbey of Hautvillers. Credited with major advances in blending and pressing, though not with inventing sparkling wine.
Veuve Clicquot: Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, widowed at 27, who ran the house from 1805. Her cellar developed the riddling table, which made clear sparkling wine possible at scale.