Champagne intends to expand its growing area. Here’s the nitty-gritty, based on a recent visit.

Is this a new idea?
No; they’ve been fussing over boundaries for a century. Remember that Champagne has just one AOC, and that it lies in the far north of the European wine world. The result is an intricate pattern of thousands of small parcels spread over a very wide area between the southern Ardennes and northern Burgundy: soil, slope and exposition all have to be perfect if you’re going to coax grapes to bare ripeness up here. Thousands of small parcels mean thousands of potential arguments.

How does it all work?
Champagne has two zones. One, rarely mapped, is the broad zone d’élaboration: the zone within which Champagne can be made (and within which other wines can’t). By contrast, when you see the usual map of Champagne, covered with little splodges and looking like an accident with a can of paint (http://www.champagne.fr/files/pdf-fr/vignoble-carte.pdf), this is the zone de production: the vineyard area. If you want to grow grapes to make into Champagne, this can only be done in the zone de production, so when we talk about ‘the expansion of the growing area’, this is what we mean.

Why two zones?
Partly because some Champagne houses had premises outside the wine-growing area (like Joseph Perrier in Châlons-sur-Marne), but mostly to stop rival sparkling-wine producers setting up shop “in Champagne”. (A long history of fraud preceded the original delimitations.) You can only make Champagne (and not anything else) in the zone d’élaboration.

When was the zone de production defined?
The zone as we know it today was initially defined in 1927, on July 22nd.
Expanding soon
How big?
46,000 ha at the time, of which only 12,000 ha or so was planted. It now stands at around 35,000 ha, of which less than 300 ha is usable and at present unplanted.

Why didn’t they get it right in 1927?
The late twenties were a bad time in Champagne: the region had undergone disaster after disaster since the mid-C19. The mildew crises, phylloxera, the First World War (much of it fought on Champagne’s doorstep), the loss of the Russian market, American Prohibition: 60 years of setbacks meant that growing wheat was more profitable than growing Champagne grapes, and vines alone wouldn’t feed a family. In many of the outlying Champagne communes, growers couldn’t see the point of applying to be within the delimited zone, and didn’t bother. Take the example of Montgueux, for example, which I visited in early July. It is now a single, isolated wine-growing commune close to Troyes, but if you look at César-François Cassini’s maps commissioned by Louis XV (produced from 1750 onwards), Troyes had as many vineyards as Epernay and Reims in pre-phylloxera times (see http://www.champagne.fr/files/pdf-fr/atlas.pdf). None of the villages around Montgueux applied to be part of the Champagne territory in 1927; indeed I was told (by local winegrower Denis Velut) that the mayor of Montgueux didn’t want to bother, either. But a wine merchant called Léon Beaugrand had married a girl from Montgueux, and he got together with the local senator Victor Le Saché to march the mayor of Montgueux off to sign up. Now, of course, all the local villages want to be part of the AOC.

Why this latest revision?
Lawyers, in a word. The 1927 delimitation was a hard-fought compromise between demand and tradition, but it became evident relatively early that it was not based on thoroughgoing scientific analysis. The 399 communes originally included in the AOC in 1936 were reduced to 318 during revisions between 1946 and 1974. By the mid-70s, though, we were well into the long rolling swell of good times which the region has known for the last 60 years. Those excluded began to realise what they were missing out on. One exluded commune, Fontaine-sur-Aÿ, took its case all the way to France’s supreme administrative court, the Conseil d’Etat, in 1992 – and won. The lawyers began rubbing their hands at the prospect of hundreds more similar cases. It was to preclude this expensive process that Champagne decided, in 2003, to re-examine the delimited parcels of every single commune inside the zone de production, as well as examine the merits of postulant communes outside. The zone d’élaboration has also been revised.

So where have we got to?
Stage one … which has been the examination of the cases of the postulant communes outside the existing zone de production. The committee of experts has decided to allow a further 40 communes the right to become part of the zone de production. Needless to say, many others are disappointed, and an appeals process is now under way, so that figure of 40 is provisional. It should be confirmed (or revised) by March 2009.

Where are they all?
In clusters. One cluster marks an extension of the scattered villages west of Reims, lying along the two little rivers Ardre and Vesle: Fismes, Baslieux-lès-Fismes, Courlandon, Breuil, Romain, Ventelay, Bouvancourt, Loivre and Courcy, with Mont-sur-Courville a little further south. Perhaps surprisingly, low-lying Champfleury on the southern outskirts of Reims has joined the club. Further south, la Ville-sous-Orbais has been added to the little string of wine-growing villages along the Surmelin (but neighbouring Orbais-l’Abbaye has been deleted: see below). Lonely Bergères-sous-Montmirail has been joined by Montmirail itself, as well as by Marchais-en-Brie just over the Aisne border, and by Boissy-le-Repos and le Thoult-Trosnay further east. Péas and St Loup have been added to the Côtes de Sézanne (so in future we can teasingly say that Champagne will be made from peas). The morsels around Vitry-le-François have been swollen by the addition of Courdemanges, Huiron, Blacy, Soulanges and distant Bussy-le-Repos. The Montgueux sector is a big winner with the addition of Macey, Fontvannes, Torvilliers, Messon, St Germain, Prugny, Laines-aux-Bois, Souligny, Bouilly, Villery and Javernant. Troyes will be a real Champagne town once again. Bossancourt has been added near Bar-sur-Aube and Arrelles near Les Riceys. General de Gaulle’s last resting place, Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises to the east of Bar-sur-AuBe, hoped for a big raft of promotions, but in the end only two nearby hamlets (Harricourt and Chmampcourt) have made it in. The southerly extension of Champagne towards the Burgundy border, finally, will be marked by the accession of Balnot-la-Grange and Etourvy (this last comune lies roughly half-way between Troyes and Auxerre).

Montgueux and nearby vineyard hills of the future

That’s it?
Further communes were allowed into the zone d’élaboration but not the zone de production (and others excluded), but let’s confine ourselves to thinking about the vineyards so as not to overcomplicate an already complicated issue.

Who’s getting the push?
Two communes. The first is Orbais l’Abbaye, as I described above, where the existing vineyards are ‘round the corner’ from the true south-facing run of slopes along the Surmelin. The second is Germaine: a forest clearing up on the Montagne de Reims where, I understand, Moët grow Pinot Meunier en lyre. The latter is being appealed.

Who else is appealing?
About 100 of the hopeful exterior communes who never made it.

Who are the experts who make the decisions?
The team is made up of a geologist, a pedologist (soil scientist), a phytosociologue (remarkable name: in essence someone who studies plant families to determine whether the broader plant community in a postulant commune is typical of those in communes already making Champagne), a geographer, a historian (since a Champagne-making past is an essential qualification) and an agricultural engineer. They are all, though, professionals from other fields, so they only work on this dossier for 30 days a year. That’s why the process will take so long.

Oh yes, we’ve only got to stage one.
Indeed. The final list of new communes will be complete in March 2009, and then the really difficult decisions begin. Namely, which parcels to include from the new communes. Not only that, but every one of the existing 319/317 Champagne communes will also have its parcels re-examined, with possible deletions and additions. (Many existing communes in the Aube are hopeful of having further parcels added.) The Etourvy team with future Champagne vineyards on the slopes behindOnly at the end of that process, which will take at least five years, will we know by how much the existing 34,000 ha vineyard area is to be extended. 5,000ha? 10,000ha? Almost no one is prepared to guess yet. One thing is for certain: this will be tense. I recently visited Etourvy, one of the communes-to-be, and talked to those who worked on the dossier. “Avec les délimitations parcellaires,” said ex-SNCF engineer Gilles Huard to me, “les fusils peuvent sortir.” (When the parcels get defined, the guns might well come out.)

Why are the stakes so high?
Simple: ordinary agricultural land (in Etourvy, for example) is worth E5,000 to E15,000 at present (around £1,776 to £4,823 per acre). The average price of vineyard land in Champagne in 2007 was E734,000 per hectare (or £236,000 an acre). That’s a fiftyfold jump.

What parcels are likely to be included?
Having recently visited a few of these communes, the principle seems clear. They have been chosen because they have fine slopes within the commune boundary (ideally facing southeast). The slopes will make it in, and the flatlands within the commune (either above or below those slopes) won’t. Broadly speaking, that’s the way it is in Champagne already. You’ll only get Chardonnay and Pinot up to 10% or 11% abv in this region in a good year on a good slope.

Geologically, most of the communes simply add another stone to the necklace of existing ones along the three cuestas which form the Champagne sector of the Paris basin. Kimmeridgean limestone at EtourvyThe first of these is known as the Côte de France: its main edge is formed by the Côte de Sézanne, the Côte des Blancs and the eastern edge of the Montagne de Reims. The middle and lowest lying cuesta is the Côte de Champagne, linking the Montgueux slopes and the Vitry slopes. The third cuesta is the Côte de Bars: a slope of Kimmeridgean limestone which, further south, reaches Chablis before continuing on to Sancerre and then Menetou-Salon, Quincy and Reuilly. That’s not the whole of Champagne’s geological story, of course: those cuestas are cut by rivers which have formed transverse valleys which provide many of the other great slopes in the region, most notably those found all the way down the Marne valley from Aÿ westwards. (You can see these cuestas and the rivers which cut them very clearly on the map on page 11 of the following pdf: http://www.champagne.fr/files/pdf-fr/atlas.pdf.)

OK, so when will we taste the first Champagne from these new vineyards?
2020 or thereabouts. The definition process won’t conclude until 2014 and appeals may push it another year or two, then the vines will need three years to begin to bear fruit, and we’ll need another couple of years to make a finished bottle of Champagne.

Once the parcels are approved, will there be a fury of planting?
Not necessarily. At present, you need to obtain ‘plantation rights’ in order to plant vines, even if you have AOC land. Those who wish to see greater liberalism within the EU agricultural regime have managed to schedule an end to this system in 2018; after that, in theory, if you have AOC land, you will be able to plant as many vines as you like on it. This makes eyes roll in Champagne. A key word you will hear over and over again there is maîtrise – control. Their success has been built, they feel, on tight control of everything, and they detest this planned liberalisation and are determined to see it off. “We’ve never lost any of our big battles,” Patrick Le Brun told me, “and we won’t lose this one.” (M. Le Brun is the Président of the Syndicat Général des Vignerons and therefore one of the two co-presidents of the CIVC, the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne. His co-president, Ghislain de Montgolfier of the Union des Maisons de Champagne and Champagne Bollinger, is in full agreement.) In other words, the planting of new vineyards will be carefully monitored and controlled by the existing system of plantation rights to ensure that it doesn’t balloon away beyond what the market for Champagne at that time could sustain.

Given that the new parcels will not be “the best land” but land which is “good enough”, won’t it mean that the average quality of Champagne will inevitably drop?
That would be true if all the Champagne we drink at the moment was made from vineyards which were immaculately tended, and if all the Champagne we drink at the moment was the ideal realisation of the potential locked in every grape. Neither is true. There are bad growers as well as good growers in Champagne. Competition for grapes is so acute that -- hard though this is to believe – both good and bad growers get the same price for their grapes. (Yes: there is a “village price” which every grower expects, regardless of quality of harvest, precise location of parcel within the village, and size of yield. If one buyer refuses, another will be there in his place, contentedly paying that village price.) Moreover the vast majority of Champagne is made by big houses in a highly effective though standardised manner, and subsequently blended to achieve the requisite crowd-pleasing style. Champagne has, thus, not yet reached a state of perfection. Extending the vineyards (and I accept that this seems counter-intuitive) might actually improve overall quality.

What? How much have they paid you to say this?
Nothing: hear me out. It might improve quality first of all because a larger supply of grapes should make for more of a buyer’s market in grapes, which in turn should make weaker growers try harder. Ideally, the whole “village price” system needs to come to an end in Champagne, and the price a grower obtains should be based not only on the site of the village itself but also on the exact positions of his parcels within a village, in combination with the quality and yield of the grapes he has grown (and sorted, though many Champagne growers have no idea at present what a sorting table is). If anything, extending the AOC makes this situation more, not less, likely. Nothing would improve the overall quality of Champagne more than an improvement in the quality of the grape supply.

Secondly, I hope and believe that extending the AOC will put more of a spotlight on terroir in Champagne over the next two decades. This has been pitifully neglected thus far – because the big houses (whose success is based on blending) dominate both purchases and sales. Whenever a grower makes Champagne, it is inevitably one with a stamp of terroir, since growers aren’t allowed to buy more than 5% of their total production, and their parcels are nearly always located in a single sector of the region. Only a small percentage of growers chose the hard path of trying to make and sell their own Champagne, but the bigger the pool of growers (and another 10,000 ha would greatly expand their number), then the more growers’ Champagnes we will have to chose from.

I don’t, finally, believe that the new sites are likely to be inferior to many of the existing parcels. Based on the few I’ve visited, they look promising to me, and better in quality than some of the existing parcels wedged darkly underneath the forest on top of the Montagne de Reims. But I have only visited a few. The proof will come … in two decades or so.