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- news
Why the RM vs NM Debate Isn't as Simple as Many Champagne Lovers Think
Normal 0 false false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE Why the RM vs NM Debate Isn't as Simple as Many Champagne Lovers Think Normal 0 false false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE I recently read an article, written with passion and knowledge, celebrating the rise of Grower Champagne. The author defined Grower Champagne as "the small-estate stuff (you know, the ones with an RM on the back label)" and contrasted these artisanal wines with the supposedly faceless world of the Négociant-Manipulants, identified by the letters NM. Like many champagne enthusiasts, I share the admiration for the growers behind the RM designation. Their stories are often fascinating, their connection to the land is tangible, and many produce outstanding wines. What concerns me, however, is the increasingly common assumption that RM automatically means authentic and high-quality, while NM implies something less worthy of attention. The reality is far more nuanced. In many cases, the distinction between RM and NM t
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HOW TO BUY, AND NOT TO BUY, VINEYARDS IN CHAMPAGNE
HOW TO BUY, AND NOT TO BUY, VINEYARDS IN CHAMPAGNE Some fascinating statistics about vineyards in France can be seen in the latest annual report from SAFER (Les Sociétés d’Aménagement Foncier et d’Établissement Rural) - the non-profit umbrella organisation whose brief is to track and guide the use and development of rural land in the best communal interest. Amongst the nine wine making regions in France covered in the report, Champagne is one of only 3 where the price of vineyard land increased in 2025. The drop in prices was most acute in the Bordeaux and Aquitaine region where prices fell by almost 24% versus 2024 Having said this, the price rise in Champagne during the same period was only a modest 0.9% but at an average price of 1.13 million euros per hectare, that is 7 times higher than the average for the entire country! Even more striking is the fact that the report reveals that Champagne represents just 8% of the total surface area of vineyards in France, yet accou
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Luxury where it’s least expected
Luxury where it’s least expected Sometimes luxury can be found in the simplest of things. Not the ones that are the most expensive, nor the most exclusive, nor the most fashionable, but rather in the experiences that are spontaneous, that live in one’s memory, that feel ‘authentic’ and that can be shared. The debate about which glasses are ‘the best’ for drinking champagne is a case in point. Opinions range from the sauce shaped glass that was popular in the heyday of Hollywood in the 1950s and 60s ( take a look at the ‘Here’s to Your Kid’ scene in Casablanca), to the tall, flute shaped glasses which allow you to watch the bubbles rise up the glasses and concentrate the aromas as you sniff the wine and more recently to a wider, white wine style glass advocated by professional sommeliers and other wine aficionados because they allow you to agitate the champagne and appreciate, to best advantage, all the complex aromas in the wine. Styles may come and may go but some things endure throug
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The Two Ages of Champagne – part 2
The Two Ages of Champagne – part 2 The previous article (cunningly entittled The Two Ages of Champagne – part 1 ) looked at the life of a bottle of champagne up until the time it is disgorged and the lees removed. Unsurprisingly, that period is referred to as ‘ageing on lees’ When the lees are removed during the disgorging process the metal crown cap which has been used to seal the bottle is also removed and replaced by the cork and the wire cage that are so closely associated with our image of champagne. From this point onwards the period of bottle ageing starts and it can last for a very long time until the bottle is finally opened and drunk. On the other hand, bottle ageing can be quite short because a bottle of champagne is ready to drink almost as soon as it has been disgorged, but in practice that rarely happens for a number of reasons. First, the bottles need a short time to settle after the ‘trauma’ they suffer during disgorgement. Consequently, champagne makers pre
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The Two Ages of Champagne, part 1
The two ages of champagne – part 1. Ageing on lees Much like we humans who go through different periods of life: youth, middle age and older years, there are different periods in the life of a bottle of champagne. Two important stages are called ‘ageing on lees’ and ‘bottle ageing’ . An understanding of what happens during each of these phases and how they affect the champagne can be useful when you’re buying a bottle and when you’re deciding on the right moment to drink it. Ageing on lees refers to the time after the various wines have been blended by the champagne maker and put into bottles. Before the bottles are sealed a small amount of yeast and a small measure of sugar are added to produce the second fermentation inside the bottle during which the yeast cells are consumed by the fermentation and sink to the underside of the bottle where they form a sediment known as ‘the lees’. At this stage, the bottles are sealed not with a cork but with a standard crown cap of the type that is
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What’s all the fuss about Dosage?
What’s all the fuss about Dosage? One of the things I see and hear at champagne tastings, much to my bewilderment, is what seems to me to be an obsession amongst some wine writers, wine journalists and others in the trade, about the ‘dosage’ – the amount of sugar that has added to the wine to adjust the level of sweetness. ‘What’s the dosage’? is often the first question asked of the champagne maker even before the wine has been tasted and, in my view, the question is almost always irrelevant. The questioner is not looking for a broad category of sweetness such as Brut, but rather a precise number in terms of grams of sugar per litre of wine. Asking this question – before you’ve even tasted the wine - suggests to me that the questioner is just using ‘dosage’ as a buzz word to convey the impression of some expert knowledge about champagne, when, I feel, it does the opposite: a misunderstanding of the purpose of dosage. Many decades ago, there was a lot more low-quality champagne on the
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News from Champagne that you may not find elsewhere
JANUARY 2026 A selection of less well-known news stories from Champagne Since we are still only a couple of weeks into 2026, I hope it’s not too late to wish you and yours a very Happy New Year. Since we share a common interest in champagne, I thought you might be intrigued by this light-hearted selection of news from Champagne that you probably won’t find anywhere else. I hope you enjoy the read and do feel free to let me know if you have any questions or comments “Welcome to the vineyards of Verzy. The most beautiful in all of Champagne.” There are some 320 villages in Champagne, and I imagine that the inhabitants of each one feel that their village is the best. Whatever the truth of the matter, Verzy must have a claim to be at the top of the list. Of course, I’m biased because I lived there for 20 years or so, but I am not alone in my opinion. The quotation above is from the opening lines of the film Widow Clicquot , spoken by Monsieur Clicquot to his young bride — before she tragic
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Crémant or Champagne
Crémant or Champagne There’s no denying that the world of wine is undergoing a period of change – sales of low or non-alcoholic drinks are growing fast whilst sales of wine are at best stagnant and at worst in marked decline. Some say that this upheaval is only cyclical and simply a reflection of widespread and (one hopes, temporary) economic woes, yet others see a structural shift with little chance of things returning to the patterns of growth experienced over the past few decades. Whatever the truth of the matter, one category of wine that is bucking the trend is sparkling wine - sales are booming. The big winner is the world of sparkling wine is Prosecco, but sales of Cava are buoyant too and this is true for Crémant as well which brings us to the main topic of this article. What is Crémant? Crémant is the term applied to sparkling wines made in France outside the Champagne region which is a category apart. It’s interesting to note that the term Crémant was used in Champagne in the
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What retail price is right for your Private Champagne Brand?
What retail price is right for your Private Champagne Brand? It’s a question that’s really important for anyone considering creating their own brand of champagne and I wish that there was a simple formula that allowed you to come up with the right answer every time, but there isn’t, so let’s consider some retail price in the U.K. and see what pointers they might give us. These prices are not directly comparable to prices in other markets but the positioning relatively to one another is relevant, as are the price categories that emerge. In my view, there are, broadly speaking, 4 price bands image. The Drinks Business Below £25 These prices can only be found in large supermarket chains who are selling their own brand. The supermarkets can achieve these prices because they place very large orders and can command the lowest possible cost prices; they operate on very thin profit margins; they spend little or nothing on marketing because they have a ready-made distribution network and in add
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Rules, Regulations & complications galore around the harvest in Champagne
When to start picking As if life wasn’t difficult enough for grape growers and wine makers wherever in the world they may be, when it comes to the harvest in Champagne, there seems to be an extra level of complication, or to be more accurate, several extra layers. Too many in fact to explain in just one short article, so let’s deal with them one topic at a time starting with the decision about when to start picking. You might assume that each vineyard owner would simply check the ripeness of his or her crop as the fruit matured on the vines and decide on the right moment to start picking. To a large extent this is still the case, but things are a little more complex than that. There are some 320 villages in Champagne and these are spread out over an area that, broadly speaking, is 120 km square. You can imagine that the variations in location mean that the grapes in one area don’t always ripen at exactly the same rate as the grapes in another. In addition, there are three main varietie
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CHAMPAGNE HARVEST 2025 Bunches, bunches everywhere, nor not a bunch to press
Bunches, bunches everywhere, nor not a bunch to press Readers who are not familiar with the inner workings of the champagne industry may be surprised by the title of this article, which is an echo of lines from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. They may also be surprised to learn that in Champagne grape growers (vignerons) are often not allowed to pick all the grapes that Nature has provided on the vines – at least not to press those grapes and turn them into champagne. In this post I’ll explain the thinking that lies behind this seemingly strange situation. Very broadly speaking there are two types of champagne maker: on the one hand, there are the well-known houses (maisons) whose names you may well have heard of; there are some two or three hundred of these and they account for by far the lion’s share of all the bottles sold around the world but they own a relatively small share of the 34,000 or so hectares of vines planted in Champagne. They own so few vineyards