Champagne

Guide to Champagne

All Champagne is produced in a region of France located 90 miles to the east of Paris, in the Champagne region of France, which consists of 319 villages in the Appellation d'Origine Controlee (AOC). Only sparkiling wines within this region may call themselves Champagne.

There are three types of grape used for the production of Champagne:

• Chardonnay to add finess and elegance and provide fruitiness
• Pinot Noir to provide darker fruit such as raspberry and black cherry tones
• Pinot Meunier to add spice and some acidity.

The blend of these grapes, along with the dosage (additional reserve wine and sugar) added to control sweetness are instrumental in producing the style of Champagne. There are six styles of Champagne for you to try:

• Extra Brut - very dry with very little or zero dosage (additional reseve wine and sugar)
• Brut - ranges from dry to very dry. The most common Champagne.
• Extra sec - dry but less raw than brut champage
• Sec - medium dry to dry
• Demi Sec - medium dry. Another popular style, good with desserts
• Doux - sweet, not particulalry common

Finally, when considering Champagne, it is important to chose what type of Champagne you wish to drink.  There are essentially four types:

Non-Vintage Champagne. Sometimes designated NV, this is the classic style of Champagne. A non-vintage Champagne will always be based on the current harvest but may include up to 50% of reserve wine from past harvest to enable the Champagne house to produce a consistent house style year after year. Although non-vintage Champagne can be sold after 15 months on the lees, most Champagne houses age the wine in their cellars for longer periods.

Vintage Champagne is a belnd of wines from one particular, stated year only when the harvest was of a sufficient quality for a vintage to be declared. A vintage Champagne will often initially be quite flowery and fresh and will only develop the classic biscuity or toasty flavours after it has aged for 10 years or so.

Rose Champagne. There are two ways to produce this popular Champagne style. The first is to use maceration, whereby the skins and juice of the grapes are macerated to extract the grape pigments thus giving the wine the pink colour. The other process simply involves adding a small proportion of red wine to provide the colour.

Pretige Cuvees refer to a champagne from a specific vintage year that uses wine from one cuvee or vat or a precise blend from several vats. Champagne houses will produce small quantities of these prestige Champagnes for our enjoyment, typically from the likes of Pol Roger, Roederer Cristal or Belle Epoque