1952 · Champagne

Champagne's Échelle des Crus

Authority: The Syndicat général des vignerons de Champagne, whose 1911 scheme of a per-village price scale first defused tension between merchants and growers over grape prices, and then the Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité (INAO), which created the terms "grand cru" and "premier cru" by decree on 1 July 1952 and fixed today's list of communes by decree n° 2010-1441 of 22 November 2010 — the same list carried since, unchanged, through the AOC Champagne's successive specifications, the current one homologated by the order of 31 July 2025.
Methodology: This is not a ranking of estates or of tasted terroirs: it is what remains of a price scale now abolished. From 1911, every wine-growing commune in Champagne was assigned a percentage, 100% for the best, fixing the share of the base grape price paid to that commune's growers at harvest — a mechanism born to end recurring conflict between the merchant houses that bought grapes and the growers who grew them. The decree of 1 July 1952 named the top rungs of that scale: "grand cru" for communes rated 100%, "premier cru" for those rated 90 to 99%. Twelve communes were grand cru from the outset; five more — Chouilly, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Oger, Oiry and Verzy — joined them in 1985, bringing the total to seventeen, where it has stood ever since. The pricing mechanism that gave the word "scale" its meaning faded out in stages: the compulsory price was dropped from the 1990 harvest and gave way to merely indicative prices; sources disagree on when the scale itself was abandoned (the 2004 harvest for some, 2010 for the Comité Champagne). Prices are now set by contract between sellers and buyers. The terms "grand cru" and "premier cru", disconnected from any price, were kept on "by virtue of local, loyal and constant practice" through decree n° 2010-1441 of 22 November 2010, which repealed the 1952 decree and fixed, by a named list of communes, which ones were entitled to each mention — the same list carried unchanged into the AOC's current specification. It is, in short, a purely honorific survival: the village hierarchy still printed on labels today no longer determines any part of what a grower is paid, unlike the 1855 classification it is sometimes wrongly compared to. Oenopia models this classification as one of communes, not estates: every entry references the commune's own region node (the `region` field, where this corpus's Bordeaux classifications reference an estate instead), as the schema requires exactly one of the two fields on each entry.

Ranks and classified growths
Rank	Growth	Commune	Since
Grands crus— Seventeen communes rated 100% on the old scale, split between the Montagne de Reims (9), the Côte des Blancs (6) and the Vallée de la Marne (2). Twelve from the outset; Chouilly, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Oger, Oiry and Verzy promoted in 1985.
1	Ambonnay	the commune itself	1952
1	Avize	the commune itself	1952
1	Aÿ	the commune itself	1952
1	Beaumont-sur-Vesle	the commune itself	1952
1	Bouzy	the commune itself	1952
1	Chouilly 1985 — Promotion : Promoted to grand cru in 1985 along with four other villages (Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Oger, Oiry and Verzy), bringing their number from twelve to seventeen.	the commune itself	1985
1	Cramant	the commune itself	1952
1	Louvois	the commune itself	1952
1	Mailly-Champagne	the commune itself	1952
1	Le Mesnil-sur-Oger 1985 — Promotion : Promoted to grand cru in 1985 along with four other villages (Chouilly, Oger, Oiry and Verzy), bringing their number from twelve to seventeen.	the commune itself	1985
1	Oger 1985 — Promotion : Promoted to grand cru in 1985 along with four other villages (Chouilly, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Oiry and Verzy), bringing their number from twelve to seventeen.	the commune itself	1985
1	Oiry 1985 — Promotion : Promoted to grand cru in 1985 along with four other villages (Chouilly, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Oger and Verzy), bringing their number from twelve to seventeen.	the commune itself	1985
1	Puisieulx	the commune itself	1952
1	Sillery	the commune itself	1952
1	Tours-sur-Marne	the commune itself	1952
1	Verzenay	the commune itself	1952
1	Verzy 1985 — Promotion : Promoted to grand cru in 1985 along with four other villages (Chouilly, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Oger and Oiry), bringing their number from twelve to seventeen.	the commune itself	1985
Premiers crus— Forty-two communes named by decree n° 2010-1441 of 22 November 2010, rated 90 to 99% on the old scale. Other serious sources count forty-four, without a complete named list that would identify the two additional communes: this disagreement, already noted by `fr/champagne.yaml`, is not resolved here — see the editorial notes.
2	Avenay-Val-d'Or	the commune itself	1952
2	Bergères-lès-Vertus	the commune itself	1952
2	Bezannes	the commune itself	1952
2	Billy-le-Grand	the commune itself	1952
2	Bisseuil	the commune itself	1952
2	Chamery	the commune itself	1952
2	Champillon	the commune itself	1952
2	Chigny-les-Roses	the commune itself	1952
2	Coligny Named by decree n° 2010-1441 under the name Coligny; today part of the merged commune of Val-des-Marais.	the commune itself	1952
2	Cormontreuil	the commune itself	1952
2	Coulommes-la-Montagne	the commune itself	1952
2	Cuis	the commune itself	1952
2	Cumières	the commune itself	1952
2	Dizy	the commune itself	1952
2	Écueil	the commune itself	1952
2	Étréchy	the commune itself	1952
2	Grauves	the commune itself	1952
2	Hautvillers	the commune itself	1952
2	Jouy-lès-Reims	the commune itself	1952
2	Ludes	the commune itself	1952
2	Mareuil-sur-Aÿ	the commune itself	1952
2	Les Mesneux	the commune itself	1952
2	Montbré	the commune itself	1952
2	Mutigny	the commune itself	1952
2	Pargny-lès-Reims	the commune itself	1952
2	Pierry	the commune itself	1952
2	Rilly-la-Montagne	the commune itself	1952
2	Sacy	the commune itself	1952
2	Sermiers	the commune itself	1952
2	Taissy	the commune itself	1952
2	Tauxières Named by decree n° 2010-1441 under the name Tauxières; today part of the merged commune of Val-de-Livre.	the commune itself	1952
2	Trépail	the commune itself	1952
2	Trois-Puits	the commune itself	1952
2	Vaudemange	the commune itself	1952
2	Vertus	the commune itself	1952
2	Ville-Dommange	the commune itself	1952
2	Villeneuve-Renneville	the commune itself	1952
2	Villers-Allerand	the commune itself	1952
2	Villers-aux-Nœuds	the commune itself	1952
2	Villers-Marmery	the commune itself	1952
2	Voipreux	the commune itself	1952
2	Vrigny	the commune itself	1952

Sources

Official sourceDécret n° 2010-1441 du 22 novembre 2010 relatif à l'appellation d'origine contrôlée « Champagne »— Légifrance (République française)
Official sourceCahier des charges de l'appellation d'origine contrôlée « Champagne »— Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité (INAO)
Reference bookThe Oxford Companion to Wine— Oxford University Press
Other sourceChampagne Grand Cru et Premier Cru : la classification des villages expliquée— Champagne Guide (champagne-guide.fr)
Other sourceClassement des crus de Champagne— Wikipédia (édition française)
Trade bodyChampagne Frequently Asked Questions— Comité Champagne (Comité interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne, CIVC)
Other sourceClassification of Champagne vineyards— Wikipédia (édition anglaise)