Lying some 120 kilometres to the east of Paris, the Champagne appellation is France's most northerly vineyard. The Champagne district has just over 30,000 hectares of productive vineyard and this is divided into five main areas: the Montagne de Reims; Vallée de la Marne; Côte des Blancs; Côte de Sézanne and the Côte de Bar.

While in theory any combination of the appellation's three main grape types - Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier - may be planted, each of these districts tends to favour one particular variety. Thus in the Côte des Blancs you will find little other than Chardonnay (over 95%) grown and this variety is also dominant in the Côte de Sézanne (70%) although there is some Pinot Noir and a little Meunier there.

Map of Champagne

Producers of champagne can be divided into three main categories: houses, co-operatives and growers. The best-known names, which dominate sales of champagne, particularly outside France, are all among the first group. The 250-odd houses are responsible for nearly three-quarters of world-wide sales and the ten biggest of these, including Moet & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Lanson, Mumm, Piper-Heidsieck, Laurent-Perrier and Pommery, account for well over half the total volume sold, around 150 million bottles a year.

There are however over 5,000 different growers in the appellation and while few own more than one hectare of land, between them they control nearly four-fifths of the total vineyard. They only directly account for around an eighth of sales but play a vital role in supplying the major houses with grapes for their brands. The third group, the co-operatives, act both as intermediaries between the growers and the houses and increasingly sell brands of champagne on behalf of their grower members.

The three groups are heavily inter-related and inter-dependent although there are a few notable houses - like Louis Roederer - which have significant vineyard holdings and thus buy in less than a third of their grape requirement. There are also a small number of growers, which make and sell most, if not all of their own wine themselves. These two groups operate independently or at least more independently from the general system.

Most champagne produced is a non-vintage (or multi-vintage) blend often containing portions of all three grape varieties in varying proportions according to the individual style of the house in question. The blend is likely to be made up from parcels of grapes grown all over the region. As well as their non-vintage brut most houses produce their own single Vintage champagne from their best years.

While most of the wine is blended, champagne can also be produced from a single varietal. Blanc de blanc is made exclusively from Chardonnay, Blanc de Noirs from black grapes, and Rose can be created by adding a little red wine to the blend. Single vineyard wines are a rarity in Champagne although the most famous - like Krug's Clos du Mesnil - are among the most sought-after wines in the world. It is very unlikely that you may even get to sample these.

Also most houses have their own prestige cuvee'. While these may not compare with the great single vineyard wines mentioned above, they signify the prestige associated with consuming champagne. Examples of such are Roederer Cristal, Dom Perignon from Moet & Chandon, La Grand Dame by Veuve Clicquot and Sir Winston Churchill by Pol Roger.