Grower Champagne

A trade term, not a legal one

"Grower Champagne" does not appear in the AOC Champagne specification or in the DGCCRF guide to Champagne labels.^1,2 It is an informal way to describe wine made by the people who farm the vines, as opposed to wine from houses that buy grapes.

What to look for on the label

The useful signal is the label code in front of the registration number. The closest match is RM, récoltant manipulant: a grower that makes, on its own premises, only wines from its own harvest.^2,3 The Union des Maisons de Champagne counts more than 2,000 RM growers, about one third of operators.⁴

Two other codes also involve growers but differ in an important way:

• RC, récoltant coopérateur: the grower delivers grapes to a cooperative and takes back musts or wines to sell under its own label.² The name on the bottle is the grower's, but the wine was made at the cooperative.
• SR, société de récoltants: a group of growers, typically one family, pooling resources to sell under a shared label.⁴

What it does not tell you

Like any label code, RM describes how the business works. It says nothing about the style, the sweetness, whether the wine is vintage or how long it spent on its lees. All Champagne, whoever makes it, follows the same appellation rules.⁵ For grower terms in general see récoltant and vigneron.