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Situated 145 kilometers (90 miles) east of Paris is Champagne, a region spanning 35,208 hectares across chalk and limestone soils. Champagne produces over 300 million bottles of sparkling wine each year and brings in 20% of France’s wine revenue, though it only accounts for 4% of all French vineyard land. From the Massif de Saint-Thierry in the north to the upstart Aube in the south, there are over 36,000 landowners within the AOC, with 56% owning less than one hectare.
By numbers, prestige, and popularity, this is one of the world’s most important winemaking regions. This guide will dive into the grapes, places, and styles that make Champagne so special.
Champagne is the most northerly major wine region in France. It is located approximately 300 kilometers southeast of the United Kingdom and 145 kilometers east of Paris. This position determines Champagne’s climate, the most important factor of terroir when distinguishing Champagne from the rest of the sparkling wine world. Nowhere else can Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Meunier grapes be grown on such a vast scale and achieve ripeness at a low ABV and a high level of acidity.
The low alcohol and high acid of Champagne’s base wines result in a lean structure ideal for bottle fermentation. Because of the fresh, crisp, undeveloped flavors of these wines, Champagne can seamlessly soak up the slowly evolving, yeast-complexed aromas of autolysis. Of all the factors contributing to Champagne’s terroir, climate and location are by far the most important. The height and slope of Champagne’s vineyards, and even its famous chalk soil, are secondary, as important as they may be in defining differences in relative quality.
Throughout history, Champagne’s boundaries have at times extended north into modern-day Belgium, south into Burgundy, west and southwest into the Loire Valley, and east into Lorraine. The boundaries of Champagne’s sparkling wine appellation itself have been fought over as recently as 1911 and were shrunk by the Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité (INAO) in 1951. Today, Champagne is separated from Belgium by the forested hills of the Ardennes, and its vineyards are spread across five departments: Marne (66% of Champagne’s vineyards), Aube (23%), Aisne (10%), Haute-Marne (0.002%), and Seine-et-Marne (1%).
The Champagne appellation consists of three zones: the zone de l’élaboration, the zone de production, and the zone parcellaire de production de raisins. The zone de l’élaboration marks the outer limits of the region, the rough-hewn area one might visualize on a map of French wine regions. This is the only part of the region where it is legal to vinify Champagne, or to transport Champagne grapes, juice, and wine, in bulk and in bottle, that have not yet been commercialized. Most of this zone cannot be planted. It is composed of 637 communes.
The zone de production is the next largest, consisting of entire villages in which vines may be cultivated. It is composed of 319 communes covering approximately 300,000 hectares. The zone parcellaire de production de raisinsconsists of a lacework of delimited viticultural parcels, representing only 35,208 hectares (of which, in 2019, 34,267 hectares were planted and 33,828 hectares were in production), a fraction of the surface area of the zone de production. It is also composed of 319 communes.