Get to Know the Under-the-Radar World of Grower Champagne

Of all the wine classes I teach, Champagne remains my favorite subject. Students engage, eager to learn; the class feels like a casual conversation about artisans who inspire me.

My presentation always includes a wine flight showcasing the differences between the two main types of Champagne producers one would likely find at their local wine shop: The large well-known maisons, or Grandes Marques, and grower producers—estates that own the vineyards that make their Champagne.

What Is Grower Champagne?

As much as we know about the Grandes Marques, there is a great deal to discover about grower Champagne, which accounts for less than 5% of total Champagne imported to the United States.

Champagne’s terroir is owned and cultivated by more than 16,000 growers, creating an incredible mosaic of varying expressions. However, only 22.5% bottle their own wine and produce on average 15,000 bottles annually. By definition, growers produce wines with estate-owned fruit, with a maximum allowance of 5% of purchased fruit.

The Grandes Marques serve as the calling card of Champagne—carrying on a 350-year-old tradition that makes this region unparalleled. Stroll down the Avenue de Champagne in Epernay, once called Fabour de la Folie (“crazy suburb”), and you will find the famous names of Moët & Chandon, Pol Roger, Boizel and Vranken, just to name a few.

These and the likes of Charles Heidsieck, Bollinger and Billecart-Salmon remain steadfast in their house styles. By design, these nonvintage sparklers show minimal variation and are only sustained by the management of long-term relationships with multiple growers. These growers account for at least 50–90% of their total production.

That production focuses on the intricate blending of vin clairs (still wines) from varying years to strike a perfect balance between youthful fruitiness and freshness and aged reserve wines, before adding the liqueur de tirage to start the secondary bottle fermentation process that Champagne made famous. The incorporation of reserve wines at this stage infuses layers of depth and complexity.

A Sparkler with a Serious Fan Base

Grower Champagne inspires fierce loyalty among fans. But perhaps even more captivating is the limited production and fleeting nature of vintage bottles. This is where we may see deviation from the flagship styles and encounter one that begs for pause and discovery in the glass. In creating this rarity, producers seek to celebrate the uniqueness of the vintage.

On average, single-vintage expressions make up less than 10% of total yearly production and 

occur three to four times within a decade. However, we have been graced with an abundance of declared vintages the last two decades (2014, 2013, 2012, 2008, 2002 and 2000). A prime example: the 99-Point 2014 Charles Heidsieck Blanc des Millénaires Brut Chardonnay, No. 3 on our 2024 Top 100 Cellar Selections list, showcases the concentration and purity of that vintage’s sun, that showcases Chardonnay’s acidity with intense crisp apple aromas balanced with a hint of toasty maturity.

Due to limited production and land holdings, the imperfections of vintage variations are common in grower Champagne. The bottles can be quite charming, if not transcendent, in great years. What’s revealed in the glass is always surprising—one can taste the vintage, the terroir. Low to zero dosage is commonly implemented, for better or worse, to provide the drinker the purest lens into that sense of time and place. 

To note, growers represent 90% of land ownership and drive quality standards. Today, producers are embracing full regional conversion to organic viticultural practices.