When you ask for a glass of ‘house champagne’ at the local pub, hand over a crisp tenner and receive some loose change with your flute of fizz, chances are it’s not the real deal. Champagne is sparkling wine, however not all sparkling wine has the privilege of calling itself Champagne.

How do I know if I’m drinking Champagne?

If your bottle of bubbles reads ‘Champagne’ on the label, that’s your guarantee it’s from the Champagne region of northeastern France, just outside of Paris. This is courtesy of the appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) or ‘controlled designation of origin’, a labelling system governed by French regulatory body Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité (INAO) that certifies both authenticity and quality of a product from a specific area.

Established in 1936 for Champagne, this protects the region, its producers, and consumers like us against cheap imitations, preventing imposters from calling their fizz ‘champagne’ if not from its namesake. (Sound familiar? There’s ongoing heated debate amongst the EU and Australian winemakers now around the rights to ‘prosecco’).

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We often speak of terroir, an expression of a region’s unique and specific climate, soils and terrain, an intrinsic sense of place that cannot be replicated elsewhere. Champagne boasts truly exceptional terroir, and as such, land in the region is hot property, demanding staggering prices compared to the rest of the world. Those blessed with holdings have invested interest in maintaining this reputation of their name on the bottle, as well as making sure not just any average Jean can cut those tasty checks.

In the interest of maintaining the standards of these coveted vineyards and its most prized product, the farming, viticulture and winemaking process in the region are all highly regulated. Everything from permitted grape varieties (predominantly Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier – one cannot simply buy up land and plant Shiraz) to the harvesting of grapes by hand is enforced by law.

And if your bottle of sparkling wine isn’t from this protected region – it isn’t Champagne.

How is Champagne made?

Now let’s talk effervescence. One can coax bubbles into wine in a variety of ways, some methods more romantic than others. To make Champagne, the wine must be made using the ‘traditional method’ or méthode champenoise, universally respected and oh-so particularly costly.

While Pét-nat utilises the ancestral method, in which carbonation is achieved by bottling wines yet to fully complete primary fermentation, the Champagne method stipulates that a blend of still wines (or cuvée) acts as a base for the secondary fermentation in bottle (called prise de mousse, caused by an addition of yeast and sugar (or tirage).

This, alongside processes including lengthy maturation on lees (dead yeast cells, yum) to build texture, and disgorgement, where the remaining sediment is removed from bottles by inverting them and freezing the neck, are fundamental to Champagne.

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