Locals fear Champagne expansion would lead to price hike

A long-running project to extend the area where champagne grapes can officially be grown is causing disquiet among local vignerons – four years before it is due to come into force.

Existing boundaries for the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) were fixed in 1927. Champagne can only be produced in an area covering 34,000 hectares, spread over 319 communes in four departments: Marne, Haute-Marne, Aube and Aisne.

However, in 2008 the Syndicat Général des Vignerons asked the Institut National de l’Origine et de la Qualité (Inao) to consider changes in the light of new knowledge of the three varieties of grapes used and new production techniques.

Technicians and agronomists have since been taking samples around the area and were due to wrap up their research this spring.

Potential price hike

However, a leak suggesting 38 new communes may soon be allowed to use the champagne appellation has provoked fears of a speculator’s gold rush, with horse pastures on sale for €1,500 an acre suddenly potentially worth €600,000 an acre if they could be used to grow grapes destined for champagne.

Government agency Safer, which is meant to have a say every time farmland or vineyards are sold in France, is mandated to control any sales to prevent speculation.

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At the same time, two communes are set to lose their status – allegedly because their clay soil contains too much chalk.

Germaine and Orbais-l'Abbaye, both in Marne, are threatening to create a storm – even though Inao says they will be able to continue producing champagne for at least another 30 years so wine growers do not lose their lifetime’s work. 

“I just do not understand how the vines in the commune, which are ideally situated on south-facing slopes and which have produced grapes for champagne for many years, can suddenly be be “déclassé” (downgraded), the mayor of Orbais-l'Abbaye, Alexandre Piat, told French television.

“Even the use of the word declassé seems like an attack on our village.”

When the technical work has been completed, it will take until 2028 for the necessary decrees to allow the extension to be drawn up.

In all of the 38 new communes, champagne grapes were grown before the 1927 boundaries excluded them.

Meanwhile, changes proposed at European Union level to ease the rules surrounding the planting of wine grapes could undermine the entire effort.

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In particular, the European parliament and council (made up of the heads of state of EU countries) reached a “political agreement” in October 2023 to “strengthen protection” for geographical indicators systems, such as those used in France’s AOC system.

One of its main aims is to have a “shortened, simplified registration procedure”, which seems to fly in the face of the years working on changes for champagne.

Environmental, social and sustainable factors will also play a larger part in geographical indicators.

Legal issues

The effect is not likely to see prices of champagne fall in France or change the quality of the wine, according to the Comité Champagne trade body which unites growers, traders and champagne houses.

“In effect we are just correcting legal problems which arose because the people who fixed the boundaries in 1927 did not do a good job,” a spokeswoman told The Connexion.

“The latest we have from Inao is that they will now finish the work they started in 2008 at the end of 2024.

“In any event, nothing will change straight away. In the communes concerned there will be no automatic right to plant. Growers will have to go through the process to get rights to grow grapes for champagne, just like growers in the existing communes have to.”

The Syndicat général des vignerons did not respond to a request for an interview.

After record post-Covid years, 2023 saw 299 million bottles of champagne sold, down 8.2% on the year before, with the fall equally divided between export markets and local consumption.