Small Grower Champagnes

Over the last few years there’s been a lot more interest in what is often called ‘Grower Champagnes’ – not a very elegant description but it’s difficult to think of something better.

• What are grower champagnes though,

• How do you spot them and

• Is the growing interest justified?

To take each of these questions in turn:

Grower champagnes are champagnes made by people who use only grapes from their own vineyards. In other words, they can’t buy in any grapes grown by anyone else.

You spot them

1. by virtue of the fact that they tend to be less well-known. The chances are that you have rarely heard of the names, although that is beginning to change.

2. by the price which is often much lower than the better-known brands and

c) by looking carefully at the label on the front of the bottle.

The reason you should look at the label is that each champagne producer has a registration number which must be printed on the label. The number is preceeded by 2 letters which tell you which category the maker falls in to.

RM

Grower champagnes are designated by the letters RM meaning Récoltant Manipulant

( literally harvester and handler)

Amazingly given the relative lack of attention given to them, there are over 2,000 RM

NM

The famous name champagnes makers fall into this category. NM means

Négociant Manipulant ( literally Buyer and Handler).

These champagne houses may, or may not, have vineyards of their own and they purchase from third parties all, or part, of the grapes they need.

There are only some 260 registered NM but they carry huge weight in the champagne industry:10% of them account for over 50% of the sales of champagne.

There are a few other categories but, for now, I’ll mention only one other

CM

Coopérative de Manipulation

This indicates a brand belonging to a cooperative of growers which takes delivery of grapes from its members, presses the grapes and then either makes champagne and sells it under the cooperative’s own brand name, or gives back to the grower the pressed wine so that grower can finish the champagne making process and market it under his or her own name.

Is the interest in Grower Champagne justified?

Well, it is absolutely certain that good RM champagnes offer what the French call

"Un bon rapport qualité / prix " meaning that for the price you pay you get a very high quality.

I hesitated to say ‘better value’ because value is a personal judgement and only you can say what you consider to be good value.

It’s equally true to say that the RM champagnes are really worth trying. I would be prepared to bet that in a blind tasting 99% of people could not tell the difference between many RM champagnes and the big, international brands.

Having said this is would be well not to assume that all RM champagne are brilliant and that all NM brands are mass-produced and over-priced. There are lots of poor quality RM’s and there are several NM champagnes that are from houses that are only modest in size and are high in quality. (a good topic for a future blog)

In conclusion, do be open to try champagnes that you may never have heard of – you’ll have some great surprises – but don’t fall into reverse snobbery and turn your nose up just because you see NM on the label.

I've recently finished my e-book called The Insider's Guide to Champagne. In it you'll find the real secrets of champagne that most " experts" and certainly most champagne houses, won't tell you. It's essential reading for anyone who really wants to understand chanpagne.

To check it out and to sign up for my free Bubbly Bulletins, go to

www.madaboutbubbly.com

Until next time

Jiles Halling

Comments

[John Sturrock]

Jiles

I love getting your updates and I'll certainly be looking out for some of these RMs and NMs next time I'm after a lovely bubbly...

Thank you

John :)