To answer this question, we need to assess the value of Champagne. We can help you understand why it is expensive and its quality. From there, you will have to decide if it represents good value for your money. Spoiler alert: We are still on the fence as of writing this. There’s one more tasting we want to organise before we make our final call—more on that later.
The Champagne region produces some of the most expensive wines in the world, ranging from roughly $30 in Australia (at the time of writing) to well into the thousands of dollars. These sparkling wines are named after the region, whose slogan is: “Champagne only comes from Champagne, France.” So, what makes this region and its wine so special?
Below, we will cover important aspects of the region to help us understand its winemaking process. We will also discuss the styles of Champagne, their quality, and ultimately try to help you address Champagne's value question.
The Champagne Region
Champagne is located at the uppermost latitude where wine production has historically been possible. It is north enough that grapes typically did not ripen sufficiently each year to produce a still wine. However, this is slowly changing due to climate change, which may allow grapes to fully ripen more often. For Champagne production, this isn’t necessarily good news; the grapes used for Champagne historically have been barely ripe and have undergone a long, cool ripening process. This allows for sufficient sugar levels and barely ripe but intense flavours (such as green apple, pear, and lemon) while maintaining high acidity—essential prerequisites for Champagne.
If the grapes become riper sooner in the vintage, you'll lose the slow ripening at cooler temperatures. Warmer vintages will make it harder to maintain the same acidity and the barely ripe flavours that are a hallmark of Champagne. This will threaten to stylistically change Champagne, and this is also why Champagne Houses are now investing in sparkling wine production around the world in other cool climate areas.
The three main grape varieties used in Champagne are: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Meunier. While there are seven grape varieties which can legally be used to make Champagne, these three are the vast majority of plantings in the region. The chalky soils provide optimal conditions for Chardonnay. Meunier is best suited to areas that are more frost prone at this latitude. Meunier vines start growing from their buds later than Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and therefore less risk from early spring frost. Slightly warmer areas further south are ideal for ripening Pinot Noir. The climate here often results in very zingy wines with less flavour ripeness. These characteristics are needed for the style of winemaking for sparkling compared to regions that are better suited for still wine production. This balancing act is difficult, and is getting more difficult as the climate changes.
Land Prices
Another important factor affecting the price of Champagne is the cost of the land; on average, one hectare of vineyard in Champagne costs a little over one million dollars. However, it is important to note that Champagne no longer has a legally defined hierarchy of land beyond the legally defined subregions. Previously, there were Grand Cru and Premier Cru villages, where the entire village had the distinction. In contrast, in Burgundy, Grand Cru or Premier Cru status is awarded to specific vineyards rather than the whole village area. This is an important aspect because the hierarchy in Champagne was historically used to directly fix grape prices.
This was busted by the EU with its anti-price fixing laws. In Burgundy, vineyards with Grand Cru status can allow the grower or producer to charge more for their grapes or wine; however, the price is not fixed to the land by anyone. Therefore, in Champagne, while historical designations for Grand Cru or Premier Cru villages remain, there is no longer a legal designation of quality anymore. This means that Champagne is divided into its five subregions but not legally narrowed down further into any hierarchy.
Burgundy as a whole has an average price per hectare around 150,000 euros. A small number of Grand Cru sites however have been valued in the low millions per hectare. Considering all vineyard areas in Burgundy, prices are not nearly as high as in Champagne. Burgundy will have specific vineyard sites that are more expensive but on average, land costs in Burgundy are much lower than Champagne. So what this means is, on average, wines from Champagne will be more expensive across the whole region, because the whole region of Champagne has significant land prices.
To further help demonstrate this, Champagne vineyards account for only 7% of defined vineyard appellations in France but they represent 52% of the valuation of land. So Champagne is just a small portion of the vineyards in France, but represents a significant amount of the value of land of all of the vineyards in France1.
Winemaking Process
The fruit is harvested by hand, making the process labor-intensive and costly. This method ensures that whole bunches of grapes remain intact during harvesting and transportation. Machine harvesting may be cheaper but can damage grapes. When grapes split, they start releasing juice that oxidises before fermentation occurs, compromising the grape quality, and thus purity of the final wine.
After harvesting, whole bunches are pressed which are then fermented. In Champagne they can use the usual vessels for still wine fermentation. Stainless steel is predominantly used because it can be easily temperature controlled. Typically, inoculated yeast are used for reliable and fast fermentation, minimising unwanted flavours or aromas and maintaining consistency.
The base wine produced is lower in alcohol but high in acidity with barely ripe flavours of apples, pears, and lemons. These characteristics are necessary because the traditional method adds secondary winemaking flavours and aromas. Instead of sealing the wine at this stage with a cork, a mixture of yeast, sugar, and nutrients is added for a second fermentation in the bottle. It is then sealed with a crown cap (same as a beer). This second fermentation creates carbonation from released carbon dioxide, uses up all the added sugars and increases the wine's alcohol a little.
Afterward, the remaining yeast that was added to the bottle breaks down in the wine. The wine is left with the yeast inside for at least 12 months and this is known as lees aging (which can last 12-36 months and sometimes even up to 10 years). The duration on lees depends on the desired wine style and price point; longer aging on lees will increase autolytic flavours and also production costs. It delays the return on investment, involves more labour and time and ties up storage space in the cellars.
The wine undergoes a process called riddling. This is done either by hand or machine. Riddling allows the yeast to settle into the neck of the bottle for removal during disgorgement. Riddling and disgorgement can also be done manually or mechanically. Once disgorged, the wine is topped up with a mixture that refills what wine was lost during disgorgement; this mixture also contains the dosage. The dosage is the sugar that determines the final sweetness levels. Both first and second fermentation result in dry wine; winemakers control how sweet the final wine will be by the addition of dosage. As grapes are generally ripe from climate change, and giving a more sweet fruit feeling on the palate, some winemakers are now experimenting with adding less and less dosage into Champagne.
Wines that taste like ripe fruit will trick your brain into thinking you're drinking something sweet, like the flavours suggest. However you can have very ripe fruit flavours in a completely dry (no residual sugar) wine. So with the changing climate in Champagne, some winemakers, mostly for non-vintage Champagnes, are adding less dosage because less sugar is needed to balance out the barely-ripe fruit characteristics of the base wine. Some sugar has been shown to help a wine age and develop, so some dosage may stay as a mainstay in Vintage Champagne.
As demonstrated, there are many steps in this process, each involving time and labor costs. The delicate finesse of Champagne requires meticulous winemaking. There are also a lot of different blending options from different grapes, different regions, different vintages, winemaking styles and all of this adds up in costs for the winemakers. These costs incurred will therefore be reflected into the final wine price.
Styles of Champagne
Champagne comes in several styles, here are some of the main ones:
- Non-vintage (NV): These are the starting offering and are made by blending different vintages together. This allows Champagne houses to deliver consistent quality and flavour profile regardless of the vintage variation each year. So your NV will taste the same year in, year out.
- Vintage: Made from grapes harvested in a single year; typically only produced in exceptional years.
- Prestige Cuvée: A house's premium offering (e.g., Moët’s Dom Pérignon Louis Roederer’s Cristal or Taittinger’s Comtes de Champagne).
- Recently Disgorged, Extended Lees Ageing: Spent extended time on lees (typically 8-10 years) but has recently been disgorged. This allows the wine to still be fresh in nature despite the long time on lees.
- Rosé: Made by bleeding off skins (similar to making a still rosé) or blending the base wine with still red wine from the region.
These styles provide a foundation for our discussion about value. In another post, we can cover the details I’ve brushed over here in both the specifics of the winemaking and different styles. However, now that we have gone through the region, winemaking and styles, we can tackle the quality seen in Champagne.
Quality
Like other Old World regions, Champagne has strict controls over harvest yields and winemaking processes to ensure quality. However, there will still be some range in wine quality; some cheaper Champagnes may be produced from lower-quality grapes and minimal aging requirements. These wines often spend only the legally mandated minimum time aging before being sent to market.
Non-vintage Champagnes are typically the lowest of the quality ladder. This is because they have the lowest minimum aging requirements and are blended for consistency. But this consistency and blending allows for a maintenance of quality. Every single time you have a Veuve NV, it tastes the same because of the blending for a house style. However it should therefore also have the same quality because of this blending. This is one appeal for NV Champagne. Every time you have it, there is no variation. You get the same product you always get regardless of any vintage variation. Warm vintage, cold vintage, rainy, hail, or a fungal outbreak, same product every time.
Furthermore, only a certain quality of wine is able to spend 15 months in the winemaking for a Vintage Champagne. Some lower quality still wines would not be able to maintain their balance or intensity even after a year. Traditional method winemaking adds complexity and quality through adding a layering of flavours, and this requires time, labour and cost. If the Vintage Champagne spends 24 more months on lees, the price will reflect this and the higher requirement of the quality of base wine that is used.
The quality of the base wine will increase as you move up from typical non-vintage Champagnes to higher-quality offerings. Part of the reason is you are now only using grapes from one vintage as an example. Historically these vintages only came around roughly three times each decade. Climate change will make riper vintages more often (but also increase the risk of severe hail storms and other risks for example, so it's hard to say it's solely a benefit to Champagne).
With Vintage Champagne, you'll have less ability to blend out imperfections like in a NV Champagne and therefore you must only use higher quality grapes. If the fruit you are using is not at the standard you want, your only option is to blend even better fruit from that harvest to improve a Vintage Champagne's quality. This higher quality also causes these wines to have more attention in the winemaking. Vintage Champagne also has to be legally aged longer in the winery before release. Because of all this, if your NV offering is $80, the vintage automatically must sit above that price and reflect the added costs of the winemaking and the cost of higher quality fruit used.
We could continue with going through more steps in the winemaking, and their associated quality benefits and added costs. However, we believe that paints a good picture of why Champagne has a higher quality standard and therefore price tag.
The Value Question
So is Champagne worth it? In terms of quality alone, on average, it stands out as a premium category of wine. If you compare Champagne offerings with other wines available at retail stores, you’ll see what I mean. If you look at the Chardonnay or Shiraz sections, the range of quality offered includes a lot more wines in the lower quality range than Champagne offers. There's no $8 Champagne found on shelves. Thus the quality is reflected by this.
The high cost per hectare for land translates into higher wine prices as does the labor-intensive nature of winemaking processes. The efforts by Comité Champagne and their marketing initiatives also contribute to increased prices. However, because of the Comité's efforts, the brand of Champagne is one of the best of any wine region. Moreover, since people often choose Champagne for celebrations, there’s an inflated price due to the demand. This is because consumers are willing to pay more for special occasions and the wine they celebrate with. This, we would say, is the main argument that Champagne has a lower value for money. There is an increased demand and people will continue to pay higher prices for Champagne compared to its quality.
Valid higher production costs and land prices justify the higher starting costs compared to other wines. Champagne's strict winemaking and quality controls allows Champagnes to fall into higher quality brackets compared to most other wines. The question of whether the cost of Champagne is then a good value proposition for you is something we cannot answer for you. Fortunately there are now some very good alternatives to Champagnes on the market. Or you may prefer more fresh fruit driven wines that do not have the autolytic notes of bread and brioche. Due to the winemaking, those wines like Prosecco, therefore have lower production costs as well. We can dive into alternatives to Champagne in another post.
Personally, we are still undecided about the value proposition of Champagne. However, the category of Champagne that demonstrates the best value, for me, is Grower Champagne. These are Champagnes that are made by the grape growers rather than the large Champagne Houses who would have typically bought their grapes. The Growers are typically seen as more artisan and are smaller in production scale. This more hands-on approach can be described as having more attention to detail as they are not mass produced like other significantly larger brands. The reason we bring these up is that they are usually less expensive because they do not have the same brand recognition and share of the market. Some Grower Champagnes however are now significantly higher in price than average Champagnes. Due to the small production levels, there is also a constraint on supply. With the increase in their demand, as time goes on, Grower Champagnes cannot stay as the best value proposition.
We know that this is a tough category of wine to do these comparisons. Or to have a lot of previous reference points as they are financially prohibitive for most people. One of the reasons why we wanted to write this and share this information. Once we do a comparison of price point and style with Grower Champagne and regular Champagne Houses we will also post about that. It's important that when people sell Champagne to the consumer, they must understand that it can be a much more risky purchase for their customer. They at are a higher price point, therefore value is even more important. Furthermore, they are usually for a celebratory purpose. The customer therefore has more riding on the wine's quality matching their perceived quality for the price paid. Especially true when used for a celebration, and being shared with others.
Hopefully that helps your understanding and therefore allows you to make more informed choice for your sparkling wine purchases. As we said, we cannot tell you what quality you would assign to a wine, and therefore justify if it is worth your money you've spent. However with this information, we hope it helps you navigate the value question better. Then also armed with the information from our future Alternatives to Champagne post, you'll have everything you need for your sparkling wine journey to answer this question.
Hope that help! Please, if you have any questions, please reach other. We'd love to hear from you!
1. Mercer, Chris. "How Much Does a French Vineyard Cost?" Decanter, 30 July 2021, www.decanter.com/property/how-much-does-a-french-vineyard-cost-439900/. Accessed 25 November 2024.