Champagne can be basically devided into two categories being the big brands and the smaller brands. The big brands will of course include all the labels which are household names such as Veuve Clicquot, Bollinger, Moet et Chandon, Lanson and many more that we all love, enjoy and have certainly had a glass or two of previously. The smaller brands are those wineries which you are likely to never have heard of and less likely to have ever tasted... these are the grower Champagnes!
Some of the most exciting, holding exceptional value for money, Champagnes to be enjoyed are produced from growers. These smaller brand Champagne labels can be as tiny as a single person producing under 10,000 bottles a year to a local market to more sizeable producers with multiple staff and exporting 100,000's of bottles globally.
Grower Champagne labels to look our for:
Roger Constant-Lemaire: https://champagne-lemaire.fr/en/home/
Laurent Lequart: https://www.champagne-laurent-lequart.fr/
Legret et Fils: http://www.champagne-legret.fr/en/
Roger Brun: https://www.champagnerogerbrun.com/
There are 16,000 or so growers of Champagne grapes each owning a part of the 32,000 hectares of vineyards. Most of these growers will produce grapes each year that are sold to bigger Champagne houses. There are 24 Grandes Marques Champagne houses which are the leading brand names, around 130 coopératives who support a group of growers to produce Champagne, 200 Négociants-Manipulants, more than 2000 growers, Récoltant-Manipulants, who make and market own-label Champagne exclusively from their own grapes - There is said to be over 2,100 different Champagne house labels to choose from.
Champagne producers came under controlled classifications:
NM - Négociant-Manipulant - Makes Champagne from the grapes bought from a third party.
CM - Coopérative-Manipulant - A group making Champagne from the grapes bought from a third party.
RM - Récoltant-Manipulant - Makes Champagne from their own grapes.
MA - Marque d’Acheteur - A reseller of Champagne made by a third party.
ND - Négociant Distributeur - Buys Champagne complete in bottles and add their own labels.
RC - Récoltant-Coopérateur - The Champagne is made by a coopérative and then sold under the name of a independent producer.
