Champagne, as a world-famous specialty of France, is closely related to a specific region. We are all familiar with the allusion of the southern orange and northern orange, as long as the origin is different, the flavor of the wine will be very different. Therefore, the French call the environmental factors that affect the quality of wines "terroir". According to the agreements signed by the French government with countries around the world, only sparkling wines produced in specific regions of France are eligible to be called "Champagne". China also signed a similar agreement in the 1990s, so we can see "Zhangyu sparkling wine" in domestic supermarkets, but it is impossible to see "Zhangyu champagne".
So, which places belong to the "Champagne region" in the concept of wine, and within the Champagne region, how can the origin be further divided into good and bad grades? The Champagne region cannot be simply equated with the medieval comté de champagne, nor can it correspond directly to the "champagne province" of the past, and the champagne province as an administrative division was abolished during the French Revolution in 1790. The later Champagne-Ardenne region surpassed the previous "Champagne" in terms of geographical concept, and in 2016, the region merged with Alsace and Lorraine to form the Grand Est (French: grand est). This series of changes is dizzying, and it's no wonder that many people feel overwhelmed when confronted with champagne-producing regions. The Champagne region to which Champagne belongs is more of a historical and cultural concept than a concept of administrative region, and to explore its origin and grading, we must talk about it from the 18th century.
Symbol of the medieval Champagne Kingdom
In April 1788, exactly the year before the French Revolution, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), one of the founding fathers of the United States and the principal drafter of the Declaration of Independence, served as the first U.S. Secretary of State, the second Vice President, and the third President of the United States. Jefferson was also a versatile scientist, proficient in agronomy and horticulture) traveled to Europe to explore wine culture and technology, spending four days in the Champagne region of France. As an inquisitive connoisseur, Jefferson took a lot of notes during his travels, which became a valuable source for us to understand the Champagne and champagne regions of the 18th century.
Jefferson writes that although champagne is brewed in both a bubbly and non-bubbly version, the French rarely drink the former. However, he preferred non-sparkling wine and bought some for himself. Unlike his French counterparts, Jefferson preferred white wines to red wines. "Their red wine," he wrote, "is revered locally, but it is hard to match in name, and it is far inferior to local white wine elsewhere." However, he records that many white wines are made from red grapes (the so-called "black and white"),and he also points out that Chardonnay grapes are inferior to Pinot Noir grapes, the former only grown in places where Pinot Noir does not grow well.
Thomas Jefferson
Not only was Jefferson an independent patriarch and future president of the United States, he was also an excellent scientist whose notes contained many details, such as descriptions of viticulture, observations of winemaking, and comments on the vintage quality of the wines. Strikingly, he did not mention the wines he had tasted in the name of Champagne, but replaced them with unique terroir conditions.
Like many of his predecessors, Jefferson was fond of the village of aÿ on the Banks of the Marne in France, where he found that it produced first-class red and white wines, a model of "river wine" among the local population. There are also places such as Ovilaire, Epernay, Clement, Avize, Menil and Mareuil. He listed cumières as second gear, while in Pierry he recorded that Jacques cazotte (French writer and philosopher who was sent to the guillotine during the Revolution) wines used to be in the first class, but their quality has declined in recent years.
Jefferson also mentions "Verzi-Verzner", "which belongs to the Marquis of Sieri." The wine is transported to Sieri for storage, so it is called "Sieri wine", but it is not made in Sieri. In his time, no name in the Champagne region was as sacred as Sieri (Sieri was the estate of the Brûlart family). The aristocratic lineage of the Brylars dates back to the early 12th century, when in 1619 Nicolas Brûlart, the former Lord of Navarre and a French Justice, was awarded the title of Marquis of Sieri; he also held vicomte de puisieux et ludes, Baron boursault, and several other titles. From at least the mid-17th century onwards, the Brylar family began to be involved in viticulture and winemaking, and soon their wines were on a par with Ay, the representative of the "river wine" and the Sieri at the pinnacle of the "mountain wine".
Unfortunately, time has passed, and today's village of Sierry has declined in the champagne field. However, Brylar's estate also included villages such as Welzi, Verznay, Mailly and Beaumont, thus encompassing some of the best terroirs that could be found in the Reims Mountains. They were sold under the name Sierry and were some of the most popular wines in the Champagne region throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and the "mountain wine" line has been preserved to this day.
Mai
A hundred years after Jefferson, the value of these terroir conditions was still reflected in their prices. In 1880, the one-hectare grapes of Ey and Dizi [which now make up the grande vallée] were worth between 40,000 and 45,000 francs. The prices of vineyards in the Hills reims are almost as high: 38,000 to 40,000 francs per hectare for Bouzzi and Ombonne, while 35,000 to 38,000 francs per hectare for Verzi, Verzner or Sieri. In Blanc, the village of Menil fell to between 22,000 francs and 25,000 francs; the village of Pierre, the village of the coteaux sud d'Épernay, had a selling price of only 18,000 francs per hectare. This shows that although official vineyard grading does not yet exist, the informal hierarchy of Champagne villages is already in place, and grapes with the best terroir conditions can sell for the highest price.
Verzner's Vineyard
The first effort to fully grade Champagne vineyards actually occurred in the early 19th century. In 1816, André Julian published his epoch-making book Topographie de tous les vignobles connus. Born in chalon-sur-saône, Burgundy, Julian moved to Paris around 1796 to work as a wine wholesaler, and his career path led him to embark on an extraordinary plan to describe and classify the world's wine productions. In the book, Julian discusses not only vineyards in France, but also every wine region conceivable from Andalusia to the Caucasus Mountains. He traveled as far as Ethiopia, Hindustan, Peru and Montreal, and even mentioned the wine-growing regions of California (which were then "part of New Spain").
topography of all known vineyards
The depth of Julian's comments is more impressive than the breadth. He rates the champagne region's reds separately from white wines, noting that Champagne's best red wines rank among the top French wines, and that its white wines are favored by the drinking public with their light bubbles, and even so, as he notes, the bubble "is not highly regarded by true connoisseurs." In addition, Julian graded the wineries (cru) within the Champagne region, divided into five categories according to quality, and subsequently rated wines throughout France. He ranked Verzi, Verznay, Mai, saint-basle (belonging to Verzy), Bouzzi and saint-thierry as the top champagne wines, which, in his opinion, could compete with Burgundy wines (but only in the warmest and driest vintages). Since this weather is rare in Champagne, he ranks these wines at the top of the second class of French wines. People such as Ovell, mareuil-sur-ay, Dizi and Pierre are ranked second in Champagne and third in France, while villedommange, Écueil and Chamery are third in Champagne and fourth in French wine. However, he believes that the top white wines of the Champagne region are no different from Bordeaux and Burgundy. Among the white wines, Julian ranks Sière, Ai, Malleuil, Ovilaire, Pierre, and Dizy at the top, as well as a winery in Epernai called le closet (named after the French word clos, usually a walled vineyard).
Verzite Class Park
Julian's third edition, published in 1832 (a year before his death), provides even more details. In the new version, he not only lists the villages as before, but also selects the best places among them.
In Verzner, for example, he speaks of basses-coutures and pisse-renard, while in Verzi he speaks of Le Ul and Vanzelle. To this day, these are the vineyards of the French Champagne master Louis Houd, which is often used for its vintages and crystal blends. In Ey, he mentions pierre-robert, where today Houd grows the biodynamic Pinot Noir grapes used to make crystal rosé champagne. He is also fond of chaudes terres, one of two plots of land where another champagne brand, Brin, grows non-grafted grapes for its "vieilles vignes françaises"; and vauzelle terme, which Jaxon now uses to make champagne from his same garden. Souchienne in Dizi is one of the most important vineyards in gaston chiquet...
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it is unclear whether winemakers produced the single-garden wines that are revered today on these lands. Julian records that winegrowers often mix red and white grapes together to make white wine, which means that they still belong to the blending of champagne. Although Champagne's wine-producing region was divided into hundreds of named lands, terroirs continued to be explored on a village-by-village basis rather than individual vineyards, in contrast to its rival wine-producing region of Burgundy.
Fast forward to the beginning of the 20th century, and in 1904, the Champagne region established the fédération des syndicats viticoles to prevent wine fraud. This is not a problem unique to the Champagne region. Wine-producing regions across Europe are battling fraud in the sourcing of ingredients – wineries buy grapes from elsewhere but lie on wine labels that they are made locally. At the same time, the grape growers of Champagne were in a state of panic as prices fell. Although the best manufacturers still insist on buying only from local vineyards and villages, some profiteers buy cheap grapes from other places [loire, languedoc and even Algeria], but the label still swears that the wine is produced in the Champagne region, resulting in the expulsion of good money by bad money. The Association of Viticulturers was born.
In 1905, the French government enacted the first law to regulate the origin and composition of wine, and another law of 1908 further allowed the setting of regional boundaries to confirm the provenance of products. In December of that year, the first decree was issued to confirm the extent of vineyards in the Champagne region: it included the province of Marne around the cities of Reims, Eppernay, And Chalon-sur-Marne (now Champagne Chalon), the area around vitry-le-françois in the east, and the province of Aisne around château-thierry and soissons in the west. This is the first time in history that the French authorities have clearly defined the scope of authentic Champagne production areas, which is of epoch-making significance. However, Aube Province is not among them. But historically, the Champagne region in the Minds of the French has always included Aube. This provoked the outrage of the wine farmers of Aube Province.
A bill passed in February 1911 stipulated that the term "Champagne" could only be used for real champagne. Manufacturers can still produce sparkling wines made from grapes from other regions, but they have to be manufactured with separate equipment and labeled truthfully on the bottles. In theory, this is a victory for the Champagne people. However, the new ruling still does not include Aube province in the Champagne vineyard region. The winegrowers of Aubu couldn't stand it anymore and held mass demonstrations in Troyes and bar-sur-aube, even threatening violence. Eventually, the French Senate passed a resolution on April 11, 1911, repealing the 1908 law.
Although the winegrowers of the Aube province were appeased, the winegrowers of the marne department did not dry up. That night, they ransacked the cellars of two manufacturers, Daméry and Cumière, because they were suspected of importing foreign grapes and selling them as champagne, ruining the reputation of champagne. Early the next morning, a group of growers estimated at 5,000 to 6,000 marched past the village of Ai, smashing them all the way. People broke into the cellars of wine merchants who were rumored to buy grapes from China and dumped their wines in the streets. Merchants' homes were looted and set on fire. This "uprising" of wine farmers forced the French government to write new decrees. It still preserves the original name of Champagne, but gives aubu the title of "champagne deuxième zone". It's hard to satisfy everyone, but at least Aube has a legal "champagne id card."
Map of the Lisboa region of Champagne, from louis larmat's Atlas of French Winemaking: The Vineyards of Champagne, published by Louis Larmat in 1944.
It was not until 1927 that a new law was passed that the term "second zone" was abolished, which implied discrimination, and a more scientific and detailed overview of the quality of production and the criteria for viticulture, including which grape varieties were licensed. In 1935, the French government established the "National Commission for Nomenclature of Origin" [comité national des appellations d'origine] (the predecessor of the Inano (National Commission for Nomenclature and Quality Control),] which is an institution dedicated to the designation of products in the country's wine regions and to prevent counterfeiting, and in July 1936, the official origin of the Champagne region was established. After centuries of controversy, turmoil and even riots among wine growers, Champagne as a wine-producing region is finally clearly defined in France – it includes 320 villages in five different provinces (Aisne, Aube, Haute-Marne, Marne, Seine and Marne). Champagne must come from the Champagne region, and in the European Union and countries with which agreements have been reached with the European Union (including our country), the use of the word "Champagne" for any other product is strictly prohibited. Unfortunately, in some other parts of the world, the term "champagne" is still sometimes used to refer to any sparkling wine in general. Ironically, this includes the United States, which has always been known for protecting intellectual property. If you see a bottle of "champagne" from California, the United States, be aware that it is not at all the "champagne" with a long historical and cultural connotation mentioned in this article.