Pelted by icy rain, shivering in 6ºC weather, utterly miserable, I poked about Moët & Chandon’s Les Sarments d’Aÿ vineyard. Georges Blanck, Moët’s dapper head winemaker, apologized, as if it were his fault, but of course it wasn’t. The real reason that I, a veteran wine writer who should have known better, was risking pneumonia snooping around the vineyards of the Champagne region in northeast France was to see if the rumours were true: Was there a revolution underway?

You see, in 2001 the 25 million-bottle gorilla Moët had debuted a package of three different champagnes containing grapes harvested from a single vineyard, a concept known as mono-cru. The trio, called La Trilogie des Grands Crus, cost around $275. (One of them came from pinot noir grapes grown in the exact soggy Aÿ vineyard where I ended up standing). Almost instantly upon the Trilogie’s release, other mono-cru champagnes bubbled up on wine store shelves. The very essence of the conservative champagne industry was being threatened.

Here’s why: Ever since the days of Ruinart (and a certain famously mythical monk called Dom Pérignon), houses have blended wines from multiple vineyards in order to achieve the truly great sparkling white wines known as champagne. There were good reasons behind blending: Lack of sun and lots of rain in the region made it difficult to grow ripe grapes, so combining the product of various crops made up for a multitude of sins. In fact, the finely honed ability of each house’s blender to achieve a consistent blend became a source of regional pride. The first break with this tradition came in 1911, when Salon made a champagne from one village, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. This paved the way for a select few champagnes made not from blends but from certain famed vineyards, such as Clos des Goisses and Clos du Mesnil.

Then a decade ago, the stirrings of a revolution: Independent landowners/growers supplying the big champagne houses with grapes started saving some fruit for themselves to produce their own small-batch wines. A handful started to farm organically and even biodynamically (an ultra-organic form of farming bordering on the spiritual among its disciples). As the growers’ land tends to be literally in their own backyard, the wines were mono-cru-like in that they typically came from a single vineyard. In addition, some made true mono-cru champagnes, using one grape varietal from one plot of land and often from one vintage or crop year. These winemakers sought to express that je ne sais quoi called terroir, the character of wine-growing land, as expressed in the grapes it produces – a concept most of Champagne had denied by its traditional reliance on blending.

At the time, the expression of great terroir, especially in a wine previously known mainly for acidity and bubbles, was terribly exciting to me. I wasn’t alone; these champagnes became the darlings of wine writers.