All Champagne is not created equally.

Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends - Tom Waits

Here’s a nugget to chew on: In 2006 the largest three Champagne brands accounted for two-thirds of all the Champagne sold in the US.  In 2007 their market share GREW.  That is a lot of Champagne made in disturbingly large quantities, all having very similar, muddled flavor profiles being sold in the US.  This crushing quantity is not, however one’s only choice in the world of Champagne.  An important, albeit small, segment of Champagne production that should not get lost in this mountain of mediocrity is the Owner-Grower; an independent winemaker growing his or her own grapes and producing some of the most unique, beautiful, individual wines from Champagne.

Lets get back to that two-thirds number.  Imagine for a minute that two-thirds of all restaurant food sold in America is sold and eaten at the same three chain restaurants, let’s say Applebee’s, Olive Garden and Outback Steakhouse.  Surely that’s no knock on the fine folks that run the Olive Gardens of the world, they’re just trying to make a buck like the rest of us, but pre-packaged-appeal-to-the-masses food sure gets boring after a while and a nice, local neighborhood restaurant with a chef-owner surely makes for a more special, personal experience, doesn’t it?

Lets apply that to Champagne.  So what if two-thirds of all US Champagne sales are taken up by three big brands.  That’s no big deal the average consumer might say.  Champagne is a high priced beverage and if I (the consumer that is) am going to pay $35, $40+ for a bottle of sparkling wine, its better if I choose something with familiarity, something with name recognition.  Right?

The big guys NEVER use sex to sell Champagne. Ever.

Well, think about that restaurant analogy.  Think about what that pasta dish at Olive Garden is like.  It has pasta, it has a protein, it has sauce, its hopefully served warm, it must be satisfying right?  Imagine what that experience must be like compared to a pasta dish at A-Mano.  It too has pasta, a protein and a sauce.  Both dishes cover the base requirements of a pasta entrée, both cost about the same but surely Chef Garcia’s handmade pasta and sauce made to order has significantly more flair and personality than Sysco pasta with sauce poured from a can and heated in a microwave by some kid who had to find a new job when they closed the Blockbuster.  The exact same analogy can be drawn to Champagne when you compare the “Big Houses” with Owner-Growers. Anything bearing a label that says Champagne, especially the one with the Pavolovian Pantone 137C Orange label, has a cork, it has bubbles, it has alcohol.  Likewise, the wine made by an Owner-Grower also has cork, bubbles and alcohol.  But, what it has over the bland sameness of the mass produced wine is personality.  Much like the palate and the personality of the Chef shine through in the dish from the local restaurant, so too does the palate and personality of the winemaker and grower in the Grower champagne.

The uniqueness of Grower Champagnes is not, however, solely determined by virtue of personality or passion.  Rather, in Champagne size does matter and this is where the true separation comes in play.  Big houses rely on the balance (for lack of a better word) of their wine and the flavor profile on blending from myriad growers.  These big wines are blended to a “house style” (making it sound more prestigious than it is) by using what an Economist would refer to as the “Law of Big Numbers.”  That is, by making as much juice as they can, from as many sources as possible they’ll ultimately arrive at result that is hard to be undone by the swings of a vintage or other random events that might affect wine.  However, wine grapes never studied probability theory and would rather show you more about where they’re from than how much juice they can produce.  Well, at least the good ones will show you as much.  By AOC law the Owner-Grower is not allowed to buy any more than 5% of their total production from another source, with most growers opting not to purchase any fruit.  So, this puts a natural limit on both the sourcing and the quantity of the wine able to be produced by an independent producer.  With the harsh conditions that can exist in the growing cycle in the Champagne region this makes it a hard road to hoe, no pun intended, for those who choose to grow their grapes and make their own wine.

OSHA wasn't around in 1855 when they did this stuff by hand.

Though it is hard going for them, this limit is what makes a significant difference in the wines.  With these smaller growers you get the character of the person by virtue of the character of the vineyard. You get the taste of a small slice of terroir. With growers’ wines, the blends are less broad and more simple; the “cuisine” of the wine is more intact and precise. And, for better or worse, you get the character of the vintner himself, you get into his palate, the kinds of wines he himself likes. In other words, these wines give you a sense of individuality that a large house could never give you.  What’s best, though, is these wines are comparable to the price of the big Champagne houses which makes them screaming values!

Spotting a grower champagne on a shelf is easy, somewhat, in that it is noted on the label.  Every bottle of Champagne bears a set of initials, RM, NM or CM; Recoltant Manipulant standing for Owner-Grower, Negociant Manipulant for wines whose grapes were Negotiated (meaning most of the big boys) and a little seen Cooperative Manipulant where the grapes are bought from the local co-op (arguably the least desirable one out there.  That said, I’ve had a pretty fantastic CM bubbly or two).  The problem is that these initials are printed in the smallest typeface known to modern man and it can be a chore finding them on the label, surely the result of some bureaucratic decision egged on by Moet or some such outfit.  The better, though less accurate, clue is that a wine is a Grower, outside of identifying the RM, is the label will bear both the name of the grower as the property name and the village where the grapes were grown (that’s where the 5% rule comes back into play).  The village indicating the style of the wine you’re likely to experience and the grower’s name because, well, if you attach your name to something it’s a virtual certainty that you’re attaching your reputation and your integrity to the label.  At least that’s the way it happens in Champagne.

It has been often said there’s more than one way to make great wine, and these Owner/Grower Champagnes always remind us of that.  With their role as a portal into the subtleties of the Champagne region and the ever changing proportions they use for their blends, each and every bottle is a discovery of something new and exciting.  Considering these past few years in the US with what has happened economically now, more than ever, we need a reason to celebrate and bring in a holiday season by toasting with something truly special in the glass. I know my glass will be full of a grower Champagne, how about yours?

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