Grower Champagne is Champagne made by the grower who farmed the grapes, rather than by a house that buys them. Two letters in the fine print tell you which one you are holding: RM for a grower, NM for a house. Both make it by the same method.
A house can buy grapes from across the region and blend them to keep a consistent style. A grower can only use grapes from their own vineyards, so the wine shows those vineyards and the year they were picked.
The two letters on every Champagne label
Every bottle of Champagne must carry a professional registration number, and in front of it sit two letters that say what kind of producer made it. They are printed small, often along the bottom edge of the front label or on the back.
Scroll the table sideways to see both columns
| Code | What it means |
|---|---|
| RM | Récoltant-manipulant. A grower who makes and sells Champagne from grapes from their own vineyards, pressed on their own premises. This is grower Champagne. |
| NM | Négociant-manipulant. A house that buys grapes, must or wine and makes Champagne from them under its own label. Small producers can be NM too. |
| CM | Coopérative de manipulation. A cooperative that makes Champagne from its members’ grapes and sells it. |
| RC | Récoltant-coopérateur. A cooperative member who sells Champagne made by the cooperative under their own label. |
| SR | Société de récoltants. A company formed by growers to make Champagne from their grapes. |
| ND | Négociant-distributeur. A merchant distributor that buys finished bottles and sells them under its own label. |
| MA | Marque d’acheteur. A buyer’s own brand, such as a store brand, made by another producer. |
Where to find the code on a bottle
Look along the very bottom of the front label, or on the back, for something like RM 812 345 in type smaller than everything else. It is required on every label.
RM tells you where the grapes came from. It does not rate the wine.
What differs between a grower and a house
Both follow the same appellation rules: whole bunches to the press, a second fermentation in the bottle, aging on the lees, then disgorgement. They differ in where the grapes come from and who makes the decisions.
Scroll the table sideways to see both columns
| Grower (RM) | House (NM) | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the fruit comes from | Parcels the producer owns and farms | Bought from growers, often across the region |
| Geographic spread | Often one village and its neighbors | Can span the whole appellation |
| What the wine is for | Showing a particular place in a particular year | Holding a house style steady from year to year |
| Who decides | One person or family, from pruning to dosage | A cellar master working to a brief |
| Volume | Limited by how much land the family farms | Scaled by how much fruit can be bought |
| Consistency | Changes with the vintage | Blended for a consistent house style |
Blending many parcels and several vintages into one consistent style takes skill. A grower’s wine shows fewer vineyards and one producer’s choices.
What grower Champagne tastes like
Grower Champagne has no single style. These four notes come up most often across the grower Champagnes we carry.
Pear
Orchard fruit. Meunier, in several of our grower blends, gives supple, fruity wines
Lemon peel
The acidity, which shows more when the dosage is low
Flint
Struck match and wet stone, a note we log often in these bottles
- The dosage varies from grower to grower
- Each grower sets their own dosage, and the range on our shelf runs from 0 grams per liter at Bonnet-Ponson to 1 at Nicolas Maillart, 4.5 at Laherte Frères, up to 7 at Paul Bara and 9 on J. Lassalle’s Cachet Or.
- The village shows in the glass
- Bouzy is a Grand Cru village on the Montagne de Reims, where Pinot Noir is the main grape, and Paul Bara’s wines are Pinot Noir led. Vertus sits in the Côte des Blancs, the Chardonnay area, where Veuve Fourny farms. The two villages are about 14 miles (22 km) apart.
- Bottlings change from year to year
- A non-vintage house blend uses reserve wines to keep its style steady. A grower draws on fewer vineyards, so a cold year and a warm year show more in the wine.
- Small lots make some cellar choices easier
- Fermenting each parcel separately, using native yeast, skipping filtration and bottling small lots are easier across 9 hectares than across 900.
The growers we carry, and where they farm
Six families farm in six villages: five on the Montagne de Reims and one in the Côte des Blancs. The map shows the relief. Each village sits on a slope.
Scroll the table sideways to see all the columns
| Producer | Village | What they do |
|---|---|---|
| Paul Bara | Bouzy, Grand Cru | Eleven hectares, all Grand Cru, Pinot Noir led. Each plot vinified separately in steel with no malolactic conversion, dosage up to 7 g/L. |
| J. Lassalle | Chigny-les-Roses, 1er Cru | Founded 1942, run today by three generations of women. Cachet Or is equal parts Meunier, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at 9 g/L; Cuvée Angéline draws on two parcels planted in 1972 and 1973. |
| Nicolas Maillart | Écueil, 1er Cru | Farms organically and certified sustainable. Barrel fermented, unfiltered, dosed at 1 g/L. |
| Veuve Fourny & Fils | Vertus, 1er Cru | A family domaine since 1856. Brothers Charles-Henry and Emmanuel farm nearly nine hectares, with partial barrel aging and two and a half years in bottle before release. |
| Bonnet-Ponson | Chamery, 1er Cru | Founded 1862, now Cyril Bonnet. Indigenous yeasts, used oak, no fining, no filtration, no added sulfites, and zero dosage. |
| Laherte Frères | Chavot-Courcourt | Aurélien Laherte, seventh generation of an estate founded in 1889. Meunier led, fermented across foudre, tank and barrel, dosed at 4.5 g/L. |
Every detail in this table comes from the producer’s own listing on our site.
Common questions about grower Champagne
- Is grower Champagne better than house Champagne?
- RM tells you where the grapes came from: the producer’s own vineyards. It does not rate the wine.
- How do I find the RM on a bottle?
- Along the bottom of the front label or on the back, in the smallest type on the bottle, next to a registration number. Two letters, then digits.
- Do growers make vintage Champagne?
- Yes. Look for a year on the label rather than the letters NV. A vintage Champagne ages at least 36 months before release.
- Is grower Champagne the same as natural wine?
- No, though the two overlap. RM is a registration category about where the grapes come from. Natural wine describes the farming and the cellar work. A grower can farm conventionally, and a house can buy organic grapes.
- Where should I start?
- Try two bottles at opposite ends of the dosage range on our shelf: Paul Bara from Bouzy, at up to 7 grams per liter, and Bonnet-Ponson, at zero.
Sources
- Comité Champagne: how to read a Champagne label (PDF)
- Comité Champagne: recognizing real Champagne
- Comité Champagne: the Champagne growers
- Comité Champagne: key figures (PDF)
- Comité Champagne: the Champagne region
- Comité Champagne: grape varieties
- Comité Champagne: the Champagne-making process (PDF)
- Comité Champagne: the appellation fact sheet (PDF)
Try a grower Champagne
We buy Champagne from families rather than houses. Each listing names the village, the cru, the grapes and the dosage, so you can read a bottle before you open it.
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