Decoding the wine label: Millésime

Champagne, the obvious choice for celebrations or holidays in any form for many wine drinkers. Since it’s a fantastic, artisan beverage, why change the tradition? With the holidays coming up, choose to pour something extra special this year – the millésime style champagne.

So, what is millésime and what does it mean? It’s actually not as complicated as it might seem, millésime is simply the French word for vintage and often used on the label for a champagne coming from one single year. Champagne is of course made in the region with the same name, located in northern France. In contrast with most other wine regions around the world, champagne is often a wine blended from many different vintages. This is an old tradition based on the conditions prevalent many years ago when the climate here was very cool. The cold and wet weather made the harvest risky and many years a part of the crop was lost to frost or rot. Depending on the amount of summer sun, grapes would also taste very different year to year.

This made a big impact on the wine, so the winemakers came up with a solution. They started keeping a reserve of wine in the cellar by saving a small part of the wine from each year. That meant they could use the reserve wine to get a bigger volume in tough years, but also provide a consistent flavor in their wine year from year by mixing cool and less cool vintages together. This style of wine with different vintages is called non-vintage and is the most common one on the market today.

The climate is still quite cool in the area today. However, some years are better than others giving the winemakers a chance to produce a style of wine that will highlight the characteristics of that specific vintage. This is when the millésime style is rightfully made, and many producers actually choose not to make their vintage label every year, only in the best ones. Besides the single vintage, a millésime wine also has to age in the cellar for longer, giving it more complexity. For a non-vintage wine, the minimum is 15 months, but for a vintage it’s 36 months. A few vintages are universally accepted as outstanding, like the 1996 and 2002 vintage, both rather difficult to find today. However, 2008 and 2012 are both considered great as well and a lot easier to acquire for the upcoming celebrations. Don’t miss the chance to cheers in style this year.

Check these great choices from Grape The Wine Company:

A Bergere - Champagne Millesime Extra Brut 2012- $74.99

Louis Roederer - Brut Millesime 2015 - $99.99

Stephane Coquillette - Brut Millesime 2018 - $74.99