Tracing the Origin Story of Grower Champagne

Tracing the Origin Story of Grower Champagne

Author David White defines the key players and developments that shaped the now-popular category

Anselme Selosse. Photo courtesy of Doug Polaner.

Origin stories matter. The power of narrative helps us shape and understand our often messy world. Wine has plenty of these tales, from Dom Pérignon’s accidental discovery of sparkling wine to Robert Parker’s rise to fame with his contrarian enthusiasm for 1982 Bordeaux. But these stories are problematic in various ways. The Pérignon story is fiction; the Parker tale is only partly true.

More recently, a new origin story has taken hold, that of grower Champagne’s rise in the U.S. market. Like the others, it misses important context and nuance in the pursuit of a tidy narrative. But if you dig deeper, a more complete picture comes into view—one that helps us understand the trajectory of the grower Champagne movement from its early days until its tipping point, when it entered the public consciousness.