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A guide to Champagne styles and how to make new discoveries

Even for Champagne devotees, style experimenting with different producers and bottlings to find a new favourite can be a costly venture. Where to begin, what to try? Our illustrated Decanter guide on how to make new discoveries in the wide world of Champagne points the way.

In one sense, Champagne is easy to understand. Is there another wine appellation with such a strong, unified brand? For all the popularity of the world’s other sparkling wines, whether Prosecco, Cava or English sparkling, Champagne’s promise is simple: spend a little more and get the real thing.

It’s even more of a disappointment, then, when a glass of Champagne doesn’t turn out to be quite what we were hoping for. Despite the reassuring unity of brand Champagne, the place is a universe all of its own, with more than 1,000 producers (split between houses, cooperatives and grower-producers) who make wines from seven grape varieties across 34,000ha of land spread over a distance equal to that between London and Birmingham.

How, then, to make new discoveries, when there’s often little obvious on the label to offer clues, other than the word Champagne itself? In the article that follows, we offer a guide to discovering new Champagnes you might like, based on your style preferences.


Scroll down for 15 Champagne suggestions across the style spectrum



Notes on Champagnes named in the text:


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