One of the most frustrating things about wine is how it demands terminology … really esoteric terminology. Few places have demanded a more specialized vocabulary to understand what we’re buying and drinking (and how we should frame our expectations for how it’ll all taste) than Champagne. Need an example? How about Brut and Extra Brut, whose g/L of sugar ranges overlap each other. Or Dry and Extra Dry, which don’t really mean an absence of sugar as that ubiquitous word does with still wine. It’s exhausting.
In a realm of complicated and esoteric terminology, Grower Champagne’s messaging has been mercifully simple.
So perhaps this accounts for some of the extreme interest over the last few decades in Grower Champagne: its messaging is mercifully simple. Positioned as the yin to the négociant houses’ yang, the growers staked their claim on individuality because they were small, grew their own grapes, then did what was best for those grapes: namely, made their own wine as they saw fit. Leave “house style” to the houses; this turf was all about vintage variation and terroir. It was a jolt of enthusiasm that Champagne needed, and for a time, Champagne had another golden rule: for those seeking out wines of individual character, they could look for the tiny letters RM for Récoltant manipulant on the label.
But as so often happens with movements, they become popular. They drive sales. They catch the attention of bigger businesses who adopt the new ways and, suddenly, the lined get blurred.
We’re well into that era now with “grower champagne,” but it is not entirely market-driven. Climate changes has something to do with it too.
A Little Background
By their very nature, growers are small outfits with small production numbers. But that’s their beauty: they break through the sameness that defines so much of Champagne and traditional-method sparkling wine as a whole.
The large négociant houses have long dominated the Champagne wine trade. Their size and buying power have meant that they account for a majority of wine production in the area — not only because they’ve had long-term contracts on prime vineyards, but because they had the means to make the wine in the first place, as the traditional method often entails significant resources (especially when it comes to holding réserve wine for top wines).
But decades ago, a band of growers — the ones who had long supplied the fruit to the négociant houses — started making their own wine in an artisanal way. And the results spawned a groundswell movement that completely upended a regional industry’s definition of quality.
Because of this key difference in how the wine is made, every producer must register as one of seven types of agents. For fine wine lovers, the two most important to know are Négociant manipulant (a broker who buys fruit and makes the wine) and Récoltant manipulant (a producer who makes wine from their own fruit … essentially, a grower). Each Champagne bottle carries one of seven two-letter codes to indicate the type of business that created the wine, so when you see NM, you know it is a négociant, and when you see RM, you know it is a grower.
A road zig zags through a vineyard in the Champagne Region of France.By their very nature, growers are small outfits with small production numbers. But that’s their beauty: they break through the sameness that defines so much of Champagne and traditional-method sparkling wine as a whole. Can a traditional-method sparkling wine reveal nuances of craft and terroir? The Growers posited, “yes.”
The Issues With This Terminology
Négociant houses have been steadily buying vineyards, and growers have been supplementing their owned fruit with contracted fruit from trusted sources. The commonality is a desire for versatility in a fluid environment.
To put it simply, the wine trade’s legacy vernacular cannot keep up with the pace of change in our industry. In an effort to make wine understandable, we have to categorize it. And in order to categorize it, we have to impose borders. But in the age of climate change and economic headwinds for all alcohol sales (but especially costly fine wine), savvy producers often see these borders as limitations. As they should: they have a business to operate.
I recently covered this stumbling block in Barolo, where to this day, wines are often informally called “traditional” as if it’s still the 1990s. And so, too, the term “grower” seems fraught, because many of the most lauded, interesting and finely crafted wines in Champagne are now coming from a hybrid of business models. Négociant houses have been steadily buying vineyards, and growers have been supplementing their owned fruit with contracted fruit from trusted sources. The commonality is a desire for versatility in a fluid environment.
It is not that “grower” is a dead term, nor négociant for that matter. It is just high time we acknowledge the gray area that has formed between the two, and divorce it from preconceived notions of quality, distinction and uniqueness.
Only One Thing Matters: Producer Reputation
So, where does that leave us? Right back where we started: producer intel. Nothing in the world of wine overrules a good source who knows each producer and their practices, and who understands the craft behind the scenes.
To that end, no one knows the region better than writer Peter Liem. If there is a “First-Taste Guide to Grower Champagne,” it’s actually a two-volume book, and it was already written seven years ago by Liem. The book is an exceptionally rich and compelling tome, simply called Champagne, and it is a rare wine book in that it has remained piercingly relevant to this day. I recommend it as much as the wines below, which all have shades of grower champagne, but a few have shed the term on technicality.
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Jacques Lassaigne
NV “Les Vignes de Montgueux” Champagne Blanc de Blanc Extra Brut
(NM)
★★★★★ (out of five)
In sum: Depth and surprise
Champagne Paul Bara
NV Grand Cru Bouzy Champagne Réserve Brut
(RM)
★★★★ 3/4 (out of five)
In sum: Clarity from Bouzy
Domaine Les Monts Fournois
2016 “Côte” Champagne Grand Cru Cramant
(NM)
★★★★★ (out of five)
In sum: Potent yet still radiant
Franck Pascal
Non-Vintage “Fluence” Champagne Brut Nature
(RM)
★★★★ 3/4 (out of five)
In sum: Primacy of Pinot Meunier
Bertrand Delespierre
Non-Vintage “Enfant de la Montagne” à Chamery Premier Cru Champagne Extra Brut
(RM)
★★★★ 3/4 (out of five)
In sum: Bright, citrusy 1er cru
