How we research and verify Champagne

Every producer page on Champagne.co is written from our own research dossier for that house, grower or cooperative. A dossier records the facts we could establish about the estate — where it sits, what it farms, how it works — together with the sources we used and the date each was checked. Those sources and review notes are held internally so that a named person is accountable for each claim; the public page carries only what survived that review, written in our own words.

We do not republish producer or retailer marketing copy, and we do not let a model invent detail that no source supports. Where a fact could not be established, the page stays silent rather than guessing.

A cuvée is not written by hand. It is structured deterministically from the reviewed producer dossier, and it only becomes publicly visible when it clears a fixed publication gate:

• its producer profile is itself published;
• it is a Champagne — still Coteaux Champenois, ratafia and other non-Champagne wines are excluded by name;
• enough characterising facts (grapes, style, sweetness, ageing or site) are present to be genuinely useful;
• no attribute is inferred. Grand cru or premier cru status is shown only where our verified record states it for that wine — never assumed from a village name.

Today that leaves 155 cuvées meeting the bar out of 349 producer dossiers. Anything below the bar stays internal until the research supports it.

We do not print critic scores or a Champagne.co number out of 100. Points imply a precision that tasting does not have and that we cannot re-verify for every bottle, batch and disgorgement. Instead we describe style, sweetness, structure and the occasion a wine suits, so you can match a bottle to what you actually want to drink.

Where we show a price, we show where it came from and when we checked it. Prices move; we do not claim a market-wide lowest price, only the lowest we have verified among retailers we currently track, for the exact bottle, size and market shown.

Some retailer links earn Champagne.co a commission. Those links are labelled where they appear — not just in the footer — and commission never buys a place, a ranking or a kinder description. See our affiliate disclosure.

We use photography only where we hold or have been granted the rights to it. Where no usable image of a producer exists, we may publish an illustrative image created with AI from verified facts about that estate's terroir. Those are always captioned "AI-created illustrative image — not the actual vineyard" and carry the Champagne.co watermark. We never invent bottles, labels, buildings or people.

Producer and cuvée pages carry the date their underlying research was last reviewed. The current corpus was reviewed on 2026-08-22. We re-check a page when a reader reports a problem, when a producer tells us something has changed, and on a rolling schedule otherwise.

Champagne.co is an independent publisher. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or certified by the Comité Champagne (CIVC) or by any producer, and we use the word Champagne only for wine entitled to the protected designation.

Corrections are welcome and we would rather hear about a mistake than leave it standing. Reports reach a review queue that a person works through; nothing published changes automatically.