With the Christmas and Holiday season upon us, I thought it might be an opportune time to post this information. I find that many wine lovers, even some of the most knowledgeable ones, are oblivious to the meaning of some of the fine print on a Champagne bottle. So here it is (ignore it if you already know this).

Every bottle of Champagne must have a 2 letter code on it. They are in very small print with a set of numbers after it. They are always on the front label based on my observations but I don't know if that is a regulation. 'NM' and 'RM' are the 2 most common with probably 80-90% of all Champagne sold falling into the 'NM" category. Here are all 5 sets of letters and what they mean.

NM (Negociant Maker)- Actually the French use the word manipulant instead of maker but it means the same so I will use maker because it is easier to remember. These letters refer to a house which buys grapes to make their wines. All of the big houses fall into this category. Of course they also use some of their own estate fruit.

RM (Recoltant Maker)- This refers to a Champagne maker that grows their own grapes. they are allowed to buy up to 5% of their production. I often look for these initials on a bottle since they are often a sign of a small house that does not get a lot of press and is a very good value.

RC (Recoltant Cooperative)- Same as RM but they make and sell their Champagnes with the help of cooperatives.

CM (Cooperative Maker)- Here you have a collection of growers that join together to make and sell Champagne on behalf of its members.

MA (Marque d'acheteur)- This is a Champagne that is owned by a 3rd party and not the maker of the wine.

As I indicated, I like to look for the RM on the bottle simply because I find small production Champagnes more interesting and like to support small producer that take pride in what they do. It is much easier to get a sense of terrior from these producers since the blending from multiple site that is done by the large houses in most of their wines destroys any sense of place. They are more concerned with maintaining a house style than delivering a unique product. of course that is not to say that large houses can't produce a great product, they can and do since they have access to most of the best sites and the most modern technology.

Hope this was informative and usefull. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and don't forget to open something sparkly.

VM

Thanks, Vino Me. I didn't know most of this stuff, even though we are big champagne fans.

Vino Me:

It's interesting that you search for these RM types of wines. As you've noted, most of the 'big' Champagne houses are the NM type. They would tell you that the reason for this is that they use the many different crops to blend their wines into the House Style. The decades long skill of the wine maker goes into producing a wine that is distinctively associated with that House consistently year after year by (sometimes minutely) varying the proportions of vineyard crops year after year.

The RM Houses, because they use their own grapes, have less flexibility to blend grapes and therefore have a higher year over year wine variation that depends on the annual quality of the site climate within that particular vineyard and the microclimate variations surrounding the vines.

If you derive interest and enjoyment over that annual variation, that's great. Others choose labels because they know what they're getting, year after year.

VM,
Thanks for the public service announcement. It's cool that you would take the time and effort to do that for others' benefit.

I agree with VM's preference for RM's due to their greater expression of terroir. And while it's true that RMs are more likely to have variations from year to year, most of them focus on their NV bottlings, which are most frequently (but not always) blends of two or more years, and I find my favorites (e.g., Lallement, Billiot, Tarlant, etc.) to be very consistent. Besides, isn't that part of the fun of wine: to experience the subtle changes from bottle to bottle, vintage to vintage. That's the approach most of us take toward still wines. Why should bubblies be any different?

I thought the most important marking on the bottle was the price.

Vino Me Thanks for the information.

Hope this isn't too dumb of a question but would it be the same with Sparkling Wines from the U.S.?

No. These are regulations in the Champagne region only.

VM

Only in Americas is sparkling wine produced outside of Champagne France allowed to labeled or referred to as Champagne, everywhere else is is called sparkling wine.
So, Vino Me's post is referring to the real Champagne and not sparkling wines from all over the world.
When I got married the catering hall tried using their champagne, grown and bottled on the east end of Long Island. Needless to say I sneaked a bottle of some choice bubbly for the occasion.

Intersting comments by Star and Stickman. I guess the question is:

Does terrior matter in Champagne?

In my opinion it certainly does. It matters as much in Champagne as any region (provided that you look for that sort of character in a wine to begin with). In my opinion, all of the talk of "house styles" in Champagne is a scam. It is a euphemism for blending away poor vintages and slick marketing. There is no such thing as large vineyard holdings in Champagne. The region is full of small plots and individual growers that sell their grapes to the major producers. If these large producers want to mass market a Champagne and produce enough quantity to take advantage of that marketing, then they must blend. When you blend wines grown thoughout the Champagne region you destroy (or at least diminish) terroir. The opulence of one vineyard and the chalkiness of another are combined and for the most part lost. This is all done under the ruse of making a "house style".

Now this might be a good practice if all Champagne buyers were uninformed novices. If you did not know about vintages or specific sites you can just look for a brand name. However, most of us pay attention to vintages and are geeky about site specific single vineyard wines. So why should we settle for less when buying Champagne? Would it be acceptable for a Cal Cab producer to blend his Cabs from the 1998, 1999 and 2000 vintages together for the lofty goal of making a "house style" cab? Or would you rather have the choice of skipping the 1998 and 2000 wines and buying a 100% 1999 Cab?

Thanks for letting me rant.

VM

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Vino Me,

Vino Me,

A great post. I'm archiving it for future reference. Thanks.

Thank you for the compliment.

VM

Well done Vino Me. I hope you get to uncork something nice and original over the holidays.

Bon Chance!

http://www.champagnedirect.ie

VM,

I agree with you up to a point regarding the belnding bit, but keep in mind that the climate in Champagne is very marginal, and that blending is the only way for the region to be able to produce high quality wine every vintage.

quote:

Originally posted by differentdave:
Only in Americas is sparkling wine produced outside of Champagne France allowed to labeled or referred to as Champagne...

Is this always true? I was under the impression that the producer in the United States needed to be affiliated with a producer in Champagne before they could label their sparkling wines as such. Is my belief erroneous?

There are no restrictions on the usage of the word Champagne for sparkling wine in the USA.

Agreed Markus. You can call sparkling wine Champagne in the US because the USA was not a signatory to the Treaty of Versailles that ended the first World War. Oddly enough in it's terms and conditions the Treaty of Versailles seems to have covered wine!

http://www.champagnedirect.ie

Despite the fact that US wineries are not prohibited from using the name champagne (or bordeaux, burgundy, chianti, etc), it seems like the only wines that take advantage of this loophole are the mass produced lowest end bottlings. Just about every quality sparkling wine producer in the US calls their product "sparkling wine" on the label and may also list "method champenoise" but do not use Champagne. Only bottle like Korbell, Totts, etc. call their wine Champagne.

VM

With the holidays coming up, I thought this information might be useful so I am bumping this thread.

VM

Vino Me, thanks for the bumping your archive back to the currents list. Like a lot of people, I was completely unaware of this information and I found it to be very interesting. Thanks for helping me become a bigger wine geek

I can't wait to go to the wine store to apply my new found knowledge, and I owe it all to Vino Me. I'm totally going for an RM Champagne this year.

VM: Great info and well written- mind if I use the information on my blog (with proper citation of course)?

Yes,

Thanks for the info VM. I'm off to survey the bottle of bubbly in my fridge now.

Cheers,

Ray- Thanks for the compliment.

Sarbuze- Go ahead and use it.

VM

Vino Me, about Champagne, I just took a huge jump in knowledge; with wine, I am still trying to get out of diapers. Still, thanks much.

Your welcome Sancho.

I haven't tried nearly as many RM champagnes this year as I would have liked to. I do have a few that I plan on popping over Christmas or New Years though.

VM

vino me:
Watch for the results of the December Maryland Offline, which will be posted in the "offline" section, as we are having our Champagne tasting tomorrow evening.
You are one of the Champ. experts arou