The classification of

Champagne Champagne (, ) is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, that demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, ...

vineyards developed in the mid-20th century as a means of setting the price of grapes grown through the villages of the

Champagne wine region The wine region within the historical province of Champagne in the northeast of France is best known for the production of champagne, the sparkling white wine that bears the region's name. EU law and the laws of most countries reserve the term " ...

. Unlike the classification of Bordeaux wine estates or Burgundy Grand cru vineyards, the classification of Champagne is broken down based on what village the vineyards are located in.J. Robinson (ed) ''"The Oxford Companion to Wine"'' Third Edition pg 152-153 Oxford University Press 2006 A

percentile In statistics, a ''k''-th percentile (percentile score or centile) is a score ''below which'' a given percentage ''k'' of scores in its frequency distribution falls (exclusive definition) or a score ''at or below which'' a given percentage fal ...

system known as the ''Échelle des Crus'' ("ladder of growth") acts as a pro-rata system for determining grape prices. Vineyards located in villages with high rates will receive higher prices for their grapes than vineyards located in villages with a lower rating. While the ''Échelle des Crus'' system was originally conceived as a 1-100 point scale, in practice, the lowest rated villages are rated at 80%. ''Premier crus'' villages are rated between 90 and 99 percent while the highest rated villages, with 100% ratings are ''Grand crus''.T. Stevenson, ed. ''The Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia (4th Edition)'' pg 172-174 Dorling Kindersley 2005

Origins

Prior to the development of the ''Échelle des Crus'' systems, the Champagne industry functioned on a business dynamic that heavily favored the

Champagne houses The listing below comprises some of the more prominent houses of Champagne. Most of the major houses are members of the organisation ''Union de Maisons de Champagne'' (UMC),making sparkling wine is a costly and time-consuming endeavor, most vine growers did not have the means or finances to produce Champagne themselves. So instead they would sell their grapes to the Champagne houses who would produce the wines. In a means to generate greater profit, some Champagne houses would look outside the Champagne region for grapes. The development of the French national railroad system in the mid 19th century opened up easy access to cheaper grapes from the Loire Valley and the

Languedoc The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France. Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...

. The Champenois vine growers were incensed at these practices, believing that using "foreign" grapes to make sparkling was not producing true Champagne. They petitioned the government for assistance and a law was passed requiring that at least 51% of the grapes used to make Champagne needed to come from the Champagne region itself.D. and P. Kladstrup ''"Champagne: How the World's Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times"'' (New York: William Morrow, 2005), p. 130-136 . With vineyard owners vastly outnumbering the producers, the Champagne houses used this dynamic of excess supply vs limited demand to their advantage. They hired agents, known as ''

commissionaire In mainland Europe, a commissionaire is an attendant, messenger or subordinate employed in hotels, whose chief duty is to attend at railway stations, secure customers, take charge of their luggage, carry out the necessary formalities with respect t ...

s'', to negotiate prices with vine growers. These commissionaires were paid according to how low a price they could negotiate and many employed unsavory tactics to achieve their means-including violence and intimidation. Some commissionaires openly sought bribes from vine growers, often in the form of extra grapes which they would sell themselves for extra profit. The prices they were able to negotiate barely covered the cost of farming and harvesting which left many Champenois vine growers in poverty. With the constant threat of Champagne houses ignoring the law and using more "foreign" grapes, tensions were already high between vine growers and Champagne houses when the late 19th century and early 20th century brought with it the devastation of the

phylloxera epidemic The Great French Wine Blight was a severe blight of the mid-19th century that destroyed many of the vineyards in France and laid waste to the wine industry. It was caused by an aphid that originated in North America and was carried across the Atl ...

and a string of poor weather and poor vintages. The tensions culminated in the Champagne riots of 1910 and 1911. To avoid the type of situation which led to the riots, producers and growers of the Champagne region formed an agreement that developed the ''Échelle des Crus'' system where prices would be set by a joint committee of producers and growers, fairly applied and based on the presumed quality of a village's vineyards. In recent times there has been discussion of modifying the classification and going to a " Burgundy-like" system whereby vineyards, rather than villages, would be the basis of ratings. Critics charge that a system based on rating an entire village ignores ''

terroir (, ; from ''terre'', "land") is a French term used to describe the environmental factors that affect a crop's phenotype, including unique environment contexts, farming practices and a crop's specific growth habitat. Collectively, these contex ...

'' differences within the large area of a village.

Pricing structure

The ''Échelle des Crus'' was originally established as a fixed pricing structure. The price for a kilogram of grapes was set and vineyards owners would receive a fraction of that price depending on the village rating where they were located. Vineyards in ''Grand cru'' villages would receive 100% of the price while ''Premiers crus'' villages with a 95 rating would receive 95% of the price and so forth down the line. Today the business dynamic between Champagne houses and vineyards owners is not so strictly regulated but the classification system still serves as an aid in determining prices with Grand and Premier cru vineyards receiving considerably more for their grapes than vineyards in villages with ratings below 90%.K. MacNeil ''The Wine Bible'' pg 175 Workman Publishing 2001

Grands crus

When the ''Échelle des Crus'' was first established, 12 villages received Grand cru status. In 1985 that number was expanded to 17 with the promotion of five villages (Chouilly, Mesnil-sur-Oger, Oger, Oiry and Verzy). Less than 9% of all the planted vineyard land in Champagne have received a 100% ''Grand cru'' rating.S. Pitcher '
Grower-made Champagnes are an elegant alternative to big-house bubblies
'' San Francisco Chronicle, December 16, 2004 The current ''Grands crus'' of Champagne include: *

Ambonnay Ambonnay () is a commune in the Marne department in northeastern France. Population Champagne The village's vineyards are located in the Montagne de Reims subregion of Champagne, and are classified as Grand Cru (100%) in the Champagne vineya ...

Avize Avize () is a commune in the Marne department in northeastern France. Champagne The village's vineyards are located in the Côte des Blancs subregion of Champagne, and are classified as Grand Cru (100%) in the Champagne vineyard classificati ...

Aÿ Aÿ (; also Ay) is a former commune in the Marne department in northeastern France. On 1 January 2016 it was merged into the new commune Aÿ-Champagne. Champagne Aÿ is most famous as a centre of the production of Champagne. Aÿ's vineyards a ...

Beaumont-sur-Vesle Beaumont-sur-Vesle (, literally ''Beaumont on Vesle'') is a commune in the Marne department in northeastern France. Population Champagne The village's vineyards are located in the Montagne de Reims subregion of Champagne Champagne (, ) ...

Bouzy Bouzy () is a commune of the Marne department in northeastern France, the Montagne de Reims subregion of Champagne. Population Champagne The village's vineyards are located in the Montagne de Reims subregion of Champagne, and are classified ...

Chouilly Chouilly () is a commune in the Marne department in north-eastern France. Champagne The village's vineyards are located in the Côte des Blancs subregion of Champagne, and are classified as Grand Cru (100%) in the Champagne vineyard classifi ...

Cramant Cramant () is a commune in the Marne department in north-eastern France. Champagne The village's vineyards are located in the Côte des Blancs subregion of Champagne, and are classified as Grand Cru (100%) in the Champagne vineyard classificati ...

* Louvois *

Mailly Champagne Mailly-Champagne () is a commune in the Marne department in north-eastern France. Population (2017): 661. Inhabitant Name: ''maillotin(e)''. Mailly-Champagne is a small village inserted in Champagne vineyard on the north of the Montagne de Re ...

* Le Mesnil-sur-Oger *

Oger Oger may refer to: __NOTOC__ * Ogre, Latvia * Oger, Marne, France * Saudi Oger Saudi Oger Ltd ( ar, سعودي أوجيه), was a Saudi construction company, incorporated in January 1978 with its headquarters in Riyadh Riyadh (, ar, ال ...

* Oiry *

Puisieulx Puisieulx () is a commune in the Marne department in north-eastern France. Champagne The village's vineyards are located in the Montagne de Reims subregion of Champagne, and are classified as Grand Cru (100%) in the Champagne vineyard class ...

* Sillery * Tours-sur-Marne *

Verzenay Verzenay () is a commune in the Marne department in north-eastern France. The town is famed for its vineyards and its champagne Champagne The village's vineyards are located in the Montagne de Reims subregion of Champagne, and are classified ...

Verzy Verzy () is a commune in the Marne department in north-eastern France. Champagne The village's vineyards are located in the Montagne de Reims subregion of Champagne, and are classified as Grand Cru (100%) in the Champagne vineyard classificati ...

Usage in Champagne

Champagne is primarily a product of vast blending - of different

grape varieties This list of grape varieties includes cultivated grapes, whether used for wine, or eating as a table grape, fresh or dried (raisin, currant, sultana). For a complete list of all grape species including those unimportant to agriculture, see Viti ...

, different vintages and different vineyards - with a typical non-vintage blend being composed of grapes from up to 80 different vineyards. However, for their ''prestige cuvee'' (such as Moët et Chandon's

Dom Pérignon Dom Pérignon (; ) is a brand of vintage Champagne. It is named after Dom Pérignon, a Benedictine monk who was an important quality pioneer for Champagne wine but who, contrary to popular myths, did not discover the Champagne method for making ...

or Louis Roederer's Cristal) Champagne producers will often limit the grape sources to only ''Grand cru'' (and sometimes ''Premier crus'') vineyards. While single vineyard Champagnes are rare, they do exist, such as Krug's ''Clos du Mesnil'' coming from the Grand cru vineyard located at Le Mesnil-sur-Oger.Oz Clarke ''"Oz Clarke's New Wine Atlas"'' pg 71-72 Harcourt Trade, 2002

Grower Champagne Grower Champagnes or Artisan Champagnes are Champagnes produced by the estate that owns the vineyards where the grapes are grown. ''Récoltant-Manipulant'' is the term in French language, French, and Grower Champagnes can be identified by "RM" on t ...

s, the product of a single producer and vineyard owner, located in Grand cru villages will often label their wines "100% Grand cru" if their wines qualify for the designation.

References

External links