Following the Champagne Riots, Champagne’s popularity continued to soar, and with it, numerous cooperatives sprung up, looking to diversify their grape sourcing. As the number of co-ops grew, it was clear that more regimented standards for Champagne production would be necessary.

As such, the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) was established in 1941 to govern Champagne-making practices from vine to bottle and the Champagne code system was introduced. Ever since, each bottle of France’s sparkling wine is labeled with a series of numbers preceded by two letters. But what exactly do these coded letters mean?

Today on “Wine 101,” Keith dives into Champagne’s code system and explains what each of these letters means about the liquid in the bottle. Tune in for more.

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“Wine 101” was produced, recorded, and edited by yours truly, Keith Beavers, at the VinePair headquarters in New York City. I want to give a big old shout-out to co-founders Adam Teeter and Josh Malin for creating VinePair. Big shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, the art director of VinePair, for creating the most awesome logo for this podcast. Also, Darby Cicci for the theme song. And I want to thank the entire VinePair staff for helping me learn something new every day. See you next week.

*Image retrieved from Sergii Zinko via stock.adobe.com