It was recently brought to my attention that each bottle of champagne includes a code on its label indicating the type of producer who made the wine in the bottle.
The codes will start with two letters followed by a series of numbers. The numbers are simply the champagne’s house code, not unlike an address. But the two letters tell you a bit about the growers and producers of the Champagne.
RM (récoltant-manipulant): These are grower-producer champagnes. These are produced by growers who grow their own grapes on their own land, then make and bottle their own wine. There’s actually a large number of “RM” producers in Champagne. By law a “RM” labeled wine must go from grape to final product on the estate of the production (an estate wine).
SR (société de récoltants): These are produced by an organization set up by two or more growers to share one winery to make and sell wine under the organization’s label.
MA (marque d’acheteur): These are sold as their own but don’t they don’t produce it themselves.
RC (récoltant-coopérateur): These are grower-cooperator (co-op) wines. Grape grower will take their grapes to a cooperative for them to make the wine and then the wine will be sold under the grower’s brand. So, it their grapes but produced by someone else.
ND (négociant-distributeur): These are merchant-distributor champagnes. The merchant simply buys finished wine and put their own labels on them.
NM (négotiant-manipulant): These are merchant-producer champagnes. They purchase their fruit from growers and then produce the champagne. This category includes a lot of very well-known labels from Champagne.
CM (cooperative-manipulant): These are Champagnes made by a cooperative of growers who band together and share resources and then sell the resulting wines under one brand name. The growers usually don’t participate in the wine production in the co-op model. Instead, they have a winemaker who creates the final product.
So, next time you are looking at a Champagne bottle, read the fine print on the label to learn a bit more about the growers and producers of the bottle. Cheers!