What's in a name? Labels are more than just a logo; they can offer a wealth of information about the bottle you're about to buy. Here's an example.
- Champagne: The region where the grapes were grown. Champagne has strict requirements, including vineyard and grape-pressing practices and a second fermentation to produce the bubbles.
2. Premier Cru: A designation of the vineyard's village, second only to Grand Cru. This helps set the prices for the grapes.
3. Gaston Chiquet: The winery, formed as Chiquet Brothers in 1919 and now operated by Nicolas Chiquet, an eighth-generation vigneron.
4. Propriétaire-Récoltant: The type of producer, in this case a grower-vintner whose wine will be made exclusively from his own property. This often appears only as a two-letter code, as "PR." The most common of the seven producer types is Negotiant Manipulant (NM), a person or entity that buys grapes from various sources.
5. Brut: A designation of the sweetness level; Brut bubbles must have 0 to 12 grams per liter of residual sugar.
6. Tradition: More of a fanciful title than a legal term, indicating in this case that it is a classic blend (with pinot meunier, pinot noir and chardonnay grapes).
7. Dizy 51318 Epernay: Dizy is the commune where the wine was made, followed by the postal code for Epernay, 2 miles away.
8. Elaboré Par: "Made By," just in case you missed the brand name in bigger type.
