Flip over any bottle of champagne and look at the fine print on the label. You’ll find two letters followed by a registration number. Most people ignore this. It’s the single most useful piece of information on the bottle. The Two-Letter Code That Changes Everything French law requires every champagne producer to print a classification code on the label. The main ones you’ll encounter: NM (Négociant-Manipulant) — A house that buys grapes from growers, then makes and sells champagne under its own name. Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Krug, Bollinger. The famous names. NM houses control roughly 70% of all...

Pick up a bottle of, say, Domaine Fourrier Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes. The label is almost entirely in French. No grape variety listed. No tasting notes. Just a name, a place, and some official-looking text. This is actually good news. French labels pack more useful information into fewer words than almost any other wine label on earth. You just need to know where to look. Here’s the cheat: French wine labels tell you where the wine is from, not what’s in it. Once that clicks, everything else falls into place. What’s the Most Important Word on a French Wine Label? The...