What are grower champagnes and why should you try them?
To understand this we have to take a quick look at how the champagne region is organised.
Who makes what in Champagne?
The fame and fortune of champagne has been built over many centuries by a handful of famous brands. In fact, although you may not be able to name more than a handful, there are 100 or so large champagne companies and these are often called champagne houses or maisons in French.
These maisons account for 2/3 of all the champagne sold each year (even more in export markets) and about ¾ of the sales value, yet the maisons only own about 12% of the vineyards. As you can imagine, these vineyards can supply only a fraction of the grapes the maisons need each year, so they have to buy the rest elsewhere. So where do they get the grapes from?
The majority of the vineyards belong to another 15,000 individuals or small(ish) independent, companies, often family owned.
In Champagne therefore the sales are controlled by the maisons, but the vineyards are controlled by the small growers. It's a symbiotic relationship which, generally speaking, has worked to the benefit of all concerned for many years.
Most of these 15,000 grape growers simply sell their grapes to other people i.e to the maisons, which turn the grapes into champagne. By the way, the maisons are sometimes called négoces, or negotiators, because they have to do deals to buy their grapes.
However about 1/3 of these grape growers have decided they want to participate in the actual champagne making process and (they hope) the profits associated with that. There are a few ways they can do that.
Roughly 2.500 grape growers are members of cooperatives with whom they work in a number of possible ways. Often they deliver their grapes to the coop and the coop makes and sells the champagne, distributing a share of the profits back to the grape grower. Some grape growers prefer to get the coop to press the grapes for them and then they take back the juice so that they can complete the champagne making and sell it under their own brand name.
That leaves about 2,500 more growers who keep some, or all, of their own grapes to make into champagne under their own brand name doing everything from A - Z themselves. It's these champagnes that are sometimes called 'grower champagnes' because the entire process is done by the person who actually grows the grapes.
If you're on the look-out for grower champagnes you can spot them by the two letters RM which must, by law, appear somewhere on the label in small type. They stand for Récoltant Manipulant (literally Harvester and Maker). Don't get too hung up on these two letters mind you. It's over simplistic to assume that only RM champagnes are the 'real deal'. There are a few other designations to look at as well, but that's a story for another article.
What about the taste?
So much for the background, but what do these 'grower champagnes' actually taste like and are they any good?
Well I'm not going to tell you that one type of champagne is better than another type; there's only one person that can give you the answer to that question and that's you. So you'll have to try some grower champagnes and decide for yourself. However 'grower champagnes' differ from the big brands in a few important ways
Local v. Regional
One of the big differences is that the négoces can, and do, strike deals with grape suppliers all over the Champagne region. This means that when they come to do the blending, they have a huge selection of wines of many types and styles to choose from and their blends can therefore be more complex than those of the grower champagnes. It's not very far wide of the mark to say that the aim of the big brands is to offer the consumer a taste that is representative of the entire Champagne area.
The maisons will also say that this breadth of supply allows them to achieve greater consistency because a poor harvest in one location can be compensated by grapes from others some distance away.
At the other end of the scale, the grower champagne maker often has only a few hectares of vines to provide the precious raw material and what's more, the vineyards tend to be concentrated in a fairly small area, or even a single village, often for no other reason than that his, or her, family has lived in that village for generations and bought vineyards there.
That means that grower champagnes can give you a fascinating insight into the characteristics of a small sector of champagne and you'll find a surprising difference in style between grower champagnes from one place and another. This does mean that you'll have to work a bit harder (and drink a few more bottles) to understand the nuances between one village and the next or between La Côte des Blancs and La Montagne de Reims, for example. On the other hand you'll discover a depth and variety to champagne