Made by small estates from their own grapes, grower champagnes have names unknown even to many devout champagne aficionados. To connoisseurs in the know, however, they're the hip, new sparklers.

Popular by-the-glass choices at San Francisco's Bacar now include Jose Dhondt's nonvintage blanc de blancs grower champagne. In New York, Per Se offers Pierre Gimonnet & Fils's nonvintage blanc de blancs, and at Daniel, I recently savored one of my favorites, from Champagne Larmandier-Bernier.

That winery's tete de cuvee was my first grower-champagne discovery years ago, when French friends poured the grand cru Vieilles Vignes de Cramant bottling, one of the most drop-dead- delicious blanc de blancs (all-chardonnay) champagnes I'd ever tasted. It was intense and chalky, with deep mineral flavors and succulent acidity.

For many wine lovers, grandes marques such as Moet & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot are synonymous with top champagne. The more than 200 huge negociant houses -- Moet alone churns out 24 million bottles annually -- produce about 80 percent of the Champagne region's bubbly.

Not many enthusiasts realize that almost 90 percent of the vineyards are dispersed among more than 19,000 growers. Few own more than 5 acres (2 hectares) -- land here goes for a whopping $400,000 an acre -- and the vast majority sell their entire harvest to the big brands, who blend grapes from as many as 1,000 vineyards all over the region to create consistent ``house'' styles using formulaic techniques.

Reflecting Terroir

That differs from France's other great wine regions, Burgundy and Bordeaux, where the prized estates aim for wines that reflect the terroir, or special plot of earth where the grapes are grown. And that's exactly what the 2,124 growers in Champagne who produce, bottle and sell their own bubbly are all about. Yes, many turn out ordinary, mediocre champagnes, but about 70 or so are passionate and brilliant winemakers who turn out bottles that compete with the best.

Grower-producers, or recoltant-manipulants, rely on grapes from vineyards in one or two villages. The initials RM on the label -- usually in minute type -- mean that an estate gets no more than 5 percent of its grapes from sources outside its own vineyards. As a result, the wines exhibit distinctive personalities, more interesting flavors and a pure taste that truly reflects individual terroirs.

Gimonnet, one of the largest grower-producers (some 17,500 cases annually), owns top old-vine chardonnay vineyards in tiny premier cru village Cuis and nearby grands crus Chouilly and Cramant, the latter of which produces wines that are noted for their minerally character.

The company can exercise quality control over the grapes at every step and keeps the best for itself, selling off the rest to -- you guessed it -- big brands.

Johnny Appleseed

When Terry Theise, America's Johnny Appleseed of grower champagne, imported his first nine brands in 1997 -- he now brings in 13 -- about two dozen were available, which amounted to just 0.62 percent of all the bubbly the U.S. was drinking.

There are about 140 brands available for purchase in the U.S. for New Year's Eve celebrations, including a dozen from the new team of respected Burgundy broker Becky Wasserman and Paul Couvreur of Champagnes & Villages. Naturally, marketplace success has inspired a new wave of young growers to start estate bottling too.

Theise waxes eloquent when he describes the difference between big-brand and grower champagnes. To him, it's a David- versus-Goliath contrast between artisanal wines and global industrial brands. ``The best restaurants now identify on their menus the small farms where their butter, veal and lettuce come from,'' he says. ``Why should restaurants who support this way of thinking serve their discerning customers Frito-Lay champagne?'' Oddly, even the smallest grower-producers offer the same range of bottlings as the big labels: everything from nonvintage brut to rose to prestige cuvees.

Biodynamics

As at many family farms, the best growers are turning to eco-friendly viticulture. Convinced it contributes significantly to taste, Anselme Selosse pioneered the ultra-organic system of biodynamics, and Pierre Larmandier of Larmandier-Bernier has joined the fraternity.

Not all trends are so positive. I'm not a fan of the growing number of oak-aged sparklers, which can be clunky and unbalanced. And in the name of ``purity,'' many producers are creating ultra- dry, zero-dosage (meaning that no sugar-and-wine solution was added just before bottling) extra bruts, which can be excessively edgy and sharp.

Dissing Hip-Hop

For many, ordering well-known luxury labels has always been about proclaiming status. That's why rappers called for Cristal -- in life and in song -- until Frederic Rouzaud, managing director of Champagne Louis Roederer, gave the impression in an interview with the Economist that he'd prefer the hip-hop community didn't consume his company's brand so openly. Rapper Jay-Z boycotted Cristal and embraced an unknown brand instead.

Armand de Brignac, which is nicknamed ``Ace of Spades'' for the shape of the label on its gold-plated bottle, was touted as a tiny, historic ``family estate'' champagne and was featured in the video for ``Show Me What You Got,'' a song on Jay-Z's new album.

In fact, the wine is a recent creation from small negociant Champagne Cattier masquerading as a grower champagne, which shows how trendy this category is becoming.

Unlike Jay-Z, I'm hardly ready to throw over major labels like Bollinger, Krug and Salon, all of which also make single- vineyard wines that show terroir. In an increasingly impersonal, mass-produced universe, though, I'm more and more attracted to bottles of "farmer fizz'' handcrafted by passionate small growers. They're a comforting reminder that great wines are more about individual philosophies than global marketing strategies.

Champagne Picks

Here are 12 grower champagnes to try:

NV Egly-Ouriet Brut Tradition ($40): Full, savory and toasty. Pinot noir dominates.

NV Jean Lallement et Fils Brut ($38): Complex and refined. Led by pinot noir.

2000 Jean Milan Selection Terres de Noel ($70): An elegant, complex single-vineyard blanc de blancs.

NV L. Aubry Fils Brut Rose ($39): Very fresh and fruity, with a nose of ripe strawberries.

1999 Pierre Gimonnet & Fils Special Club Brut ($65): A polished, intense old-vine blanc de blancs.

NV Pierre Peters Cuvee de Reserve Brut ($30): A toasty, creamy, bargain blanc de blancs.

1995 Rene Geoffroy Cuvee de Rene Geoffroy Brut ($210). Stunningly pure, spicy and rich. Available only in magnums.

1999 Vilmart & Cie Grand Cellier d'Or Brut ($60): Powerful, yet elegant, with notes of caramel.