Champagne Diamonds are Natural colour Diamonds in beautiful Champagne tones, ranging from the pale soft Sherry tones to rich medium Champagne to deep dark Cognac.

When diamonds are recovered from the mines, the "colourless" diamonds are recovered together with their champagne and fancy colour cousins, as well as lower-grade diamonds used for industrial use. The "colourless", champagne, and fancy colour diamonds are all "real", legitimate diamonds, differentiated only by their colour and rarity (especially in the case of the pink, blue, and green fancy colour stones, for example) . The "colourless", champagne, and fancy colour diamonds are all cut and polished according to the same criteria, and then graded according to the same standards for carat weight, clarity and cut.

colour

The basic difference in their rating comes with colour, where "colourless" stones are graded according to GIA, EGL, IGI, or similar laboratory standards, as are fancy colour stones. Champagne diamonds are graded according to a simpler C1-C7 colour scale created by the Champagne Diamond Registry in the early 1990's.

Cut

Bad cutting can affect the colour in a diamond, often leading to uneven colour-zoning. In fancy coloured diamonds, "bow ties" often appear in those cut in fancy shapes. This is not necessarily bad unless it dramatically affects the colour of the stone.

Clarity

Like all diamonds, coloured stones come in a range of clarities. The amount of colour usually outweighs clarity unless the stone is visibly marked.

Source

Although the rough stones which are polished into champagne diamonds can come from many sources, many champagne diamonds originate in the Argyle mines, in the northwest corner of Australia. Argyle was one of the largest mine deposits ever found, in the late 1970's. It has been mined for the last thirty years, yielding a large quantity of both colourless and champagne diamonds, as well as lower-grade industrial diamonds.

Noteworthy Champagnes

The Golden Giant is a giant Champagne coloured diamond, which weighs 407.43 carats. It is owned by Glick of New York. The privately-owned Earth Star is a pear shape Cognac diamond of 111.59 carats.

Maria Menounos, E! Reporter, interviewed the stars on the red carpet wearing champagne diamond dress and champagne diamond jewelry at the 2004 Acadamy Awards