What’s your Champagne Style?
While there is but one way of making Champagne, not all Champagnes are the same. Champagne is a blend of three essential ingredients: grape varieties, vineyards and vintages. In combination, they can create a particular Champagne style. Champagne is a protected word, meaning it can only come from the Champagne region, but the styles of Champagnes available differ wildly. This can appear confusing, but there are legal definitions to help describe the style of wine and hence find those cuvées that appeal personally.
This article (the origins of which date back to 2016) has been revised and updated for republishing in 2025. It formed the basis of a particularly popular tasting session, and Wine Alchemy readers continue to ask for it. So, once again, here it is.
Most Champagne is a blend
The reason for blending is Champagne’s marginal climate. There is considerable weather variation every year, similar to our UK experience; frost, rain, and cold temperatures bring a high risk of diabolical harvests, potentially ruinous for any winegrower. Before modern science, technology and global warming, blending was a way to hedge your bets. In turn, this also created consistency in quality, quantity, and prices. Champagne made a virtue out of necessity, and gradually different Champagne styles emerged.
Indeed, if it weren’t for nearby Paris and the discovery and control of making bubbles, then the Champagne region might not exist anymore. There are many easier and cheaper places to make quality wine. Champagne became the most renowned wine brand in existence. If you like Champagne, then there is much to explore. If you don’t, then that may be because you just haven’t found your Champagne style. Yet.
Making Champagne is a long and expensive process involving many stages. Each step gives the winegrower plenty of opportunities to create recognisable differences and individuality.
A blend of grapes
First, 99.98% of modern Champagne must use only three permitted grape varieties. These are white Chardonnay and the black Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. These are the grape varieties considered best suited to the climate and thin chalk soils. Each type of grape has different strengths and plays a different role. If Champagne is the human body, then Chardonnay is the skin, Pinot Noir the muscles, and Pinot Meunier the bones.
While there are tiny remnants of other grape varieties left, Champagne banned new plantings of them long ago. Global warming has meant new research into suitable grape varieties and so far, one of these has been given temporary authorisation, a hybrid known as Voltis.
A blend of places
Moreover, Champagne grapes are from various village locations all over the sub-regions of Champagne. Each has an official quality rating. For example, Grand Cru means the grapes from 17 top-rated villages, Premier Cru refers to the second highest tier with 44 sites, both implying higher quality and higher prices. Alternatively, producers in the north of Champagne may obtain grapes such as Pinot Noir from the warmer south, where the variety is likely to ripen more reliably, and there is more availability. Conversely, a single excellent site may be chosen to make a single-vineyard terroir Champagne. Examples include Krug (Clos du Mesnil) and Philipponnat (Clos des Goisses).
The winemaker can, therefore, play with grapes from different places, growers and quality levels. Each of these creates a separate base wine, which will blend into the desired Champagne style.
A blend of years
Then, Champagne is usually a blend of years, creating the so-called non-vintage (NV) style, which is occasionally referred to as multi-vintage (though this is not a legally defined term). Retaining stocks of older still base wines makes a reserve to use with future harvests. This process smooths out the peaks and troughs of vintage variation. It might blend the current year and the previous one or two years for a small winegrower. For a large Champagne house, there may be many older wines included in the mix in various percentages. It ensures that the bottle you open always meets the House style’s desired quality and flavour profile. The House style is a recipe – meddle with it at your peril!
NV Champagne
NV Champagne is the essential wine of any Champagne House. It accounts for 80% of sales and so defines the individual House Champagne style. As such, it is arguably the Champagne style that depends on blending skills the most. Even though they may not be the most refined examples in the range, they are the most visible. Their quality can vary from indifferent to magical. For example, Krug Grand Cuvée uses up to ten different vintages in the blend. That’s why Krug calls their NV a multi-vintage. Good NVs will continue to improve and develop in the bottle over a few more years. Sadly, most never get the chance. Put a few NV bottles away if you can; you’ll taste the improvement even after just a few months.
Vintage Champagne
Vintage Champagnes are traditionally made only in great harvest years because there is no scope to use older base wines, as every drop must be from the harvest year. That once meant three or four years per decade at most. Hence, it only accounts for around 10% of the Champagne produced.
However, some Houses declare vintages more often. It’s possible to make a great wine even in more deficient years if the grape selection is strict, but that means smaller amounts of wine, though climate change is now influencing this decision. In a Vintage wine, the base wines must be higher in alcohol than NV, and the law requires considerably more minimum ageing. NV has fifteen months as a minimum for ageing, while vintage is three years minimum1. The longer the wine ages, the longer it sits on the lees in the bottle. As it does so, yeasty flavours and aromas develop. These often taste of baked bread, toast or brioche.
As demand increases for Vintage Champagne, there is a commercial temptation to make it every year. Hence, the reputation of the House is paramount in this respect. Salon, a specialist House, makes only vintage wines and only in the very best years.
The best wines from the most exceptional years can develop for decades. While they can be drunk on release, their glory is after at least another 5-10 years of maturation. With power and complexity, they are always best with food.
Sweetness levels
Champagne producers also categorise their wines by sweetness level:
Brut
The vast majority of Champagne made today is in the Brut (dry) style, which is the most popular and versatile. The permitted level of sugar for Brut is 0-12g of residual sugar per litre. Deciding on the dryness of the final wine is at the last stage of the production process; using a dose of sugar balances out the acidity. Most Brut wines still require a dosage, as anyone who has ever tried the acidic base wines will attest! Global warming means the amount of dosage required is reducing, though some sugar also aids ageing potential. Extra Brut is 0-6 g/l residual sugar, for an even drier style.
A mention too for a relatively recent and fashionable innovation, that of Brut Nature, at 0-3 g/l residual sugar. It’s also known as Brut sauvage, Brut zéro, ultra-brut, or sans sucre. There is no additional sugar added, leaving the wines bone dry and austere, particularly when young. These can be brilliant with food, but approach them more cautiously to drink as an apéritif.
Extra Dry
Aka Extra Sec, this is a rarity in Champagne (but popular in Prosecco), with 12-17 g/l residual sugar. Best described as just off dry with a hint of sweetness, while Sec/Dry is sweeter still with 17-32 g/l residual sugar. Beware the naming of these categories – the wines are NOT dry!
Demi Sec
Today, some see sweeter fizz as synonymous with inferior quality, and indeed, much of it is – sugar is good at hiding up major flaws! But there are small amounts made of excellent demi-sec. Often known as Rich, demi-sec is the sweetest style made commercially, at 33-50 g/l. High-quality examples, for instance, Pol Roger (Rich), Taittinger (Nocturne) and Roederer (Carte Blanche), are great with fruit desserts and merangues, or with Foie Gras. The sugary and super sweet Doux, once beloved of Russian Tsars, no longer exists commercially, but is defined at 50+ g/l.
Acidity
Champagne’s acidity is in itself a major stylistic factor. The base wines come from grapes that are barely ripe compared to other wine regions. They are high in sharp malic acid and low in sugar. During the Champagne process, this malic acid can transform naturally by a secondary fermentation into softer lactic acid if required. Preventing that makes wine with a tart but fresh acidity. Conversely, allowing the malolactic fermentation creates smoother, broader and creamier wines. Or choose different malic and lactic base wines to blend the acidity. The difference between the razor focus of Lanson and Pol Roger’s satin softness is startling, yet both are excellent.
Barrels
Fermenting and maturing a proportion of the base wines in wood can also make stylistic differences. Bollinger is probably the most famous example where this is practised, imparting creaminess and complexity. Premium winegrowers like Selosse even employ a Solera system to fractionally blend base wines.
Blanc de Blancs
Blanc de Blancs is a distinct style meaning “white of whites”. This wine will be 100% Chardonnay and has the most significant ageing potential of any Champagne. Often light and fresh when young, with bottle age, they develop secondary flavours of honey and nuts. They may be NV or Vintage.
Blanc de Noirs
Wines labelled Blanc de Noirs are the opposite. These are white wines solely from the black grapes, Pinot Noir and/or Pinot Meunier. This style was less visible until Bollinger made it fashionable. As the colour is in the grape skins rather than the juice, early separation creates a white wine. Full-fruited and weighty, they come alive with food, such as white meats. There are some excellent examples, especially from the southernmost part of the region.
Rosé
The popularity of Rosé has fluctuated ever since Veuve Clicquot made the first one. Rosé accounts for around 10% of the market. Pink fizz gains popularity in times of prosperity and is an essential part of the range. Unlike all other rosé wines made in Europe, it’s usually made from blending red and white base wines. This method gives consistent control over the colour, in a spectrum ranging from onion skin through salmon to dark pink. The alternative method is saignée. This process allows brief skin contact with Pinot before drawing the pink juice off. Consistent colour is harder to achieve with this method. Rosé ranges from delicate and nuanced to muscular and powerful. Others are frivolous froth. Most are best young while the colour and red berry fruit flavours remain intact. However, there are some beautiful examples. Find out more about Rosé Champagne here.
Prestige Cuvées
What then of the Prestige Cuvées? These are the no-expense-spared wines. The famous ones include Cristal (Roederer), Dom Perignon (Möet), Belle Époque (Perrier-Jouët), Vieille Vignes Françaises (Bollinger), Clos des Goisses (Philipponnat), S (Salon), Clos de Mesnil (Krug) and Le Clos Saint Hilaire (Billecart-Salmon).
These Champagnes are the ultimate luxury, reflecting the very best quality a Champagne House can attain. Indeed, they are the Haute Couture of the wine world. All come in various Champagne styles. They might be vintage, they might be a single-vineyard, and they might be a blend. All push the envelope, and all are expensive. Are they worth it? The top ones undoubtedly are, as long as they have the required long bottle age. If you open one, dress up a bit and make it an extraordinary occasion.
And finally
This article demonstrates that Champagne isn’t just one drink. The winegrower can play with an incredible palette to create a Champagne-style that can take many forms. Furthermore, many of these techniques have been adopted in other sparkling wine regions and use the same nomenclature.
The Champenois frequently say Chacun à son gôut, which means, to each their taste. So what’s yours?
Original article published in 2016, republished with revisions in 2025.
Notes
- The exact ageing rules are slightly more complex than this. For NV, the minimum maturation is for 15 months. It must only start after the 1st of January following the harvest. Then at least 12 months of that time is spent on the lees. It also applies to the youngest wine in the blend. For Vintage, the minimum of 36 months strictly means a minimum of 36 months from the date of bottling to the date of disgorgement.
What’s your Champagne-style? Try this classic Brut NV from Lanson.
How about taking an online Champagne Course? Try this one.