I saw a diamond today and it was a strong brown (maybe champaign, maybe not that strong) color.  I wasn't sure if it was brown or champaign.

Hi All1
The term Champagne is simply a commercial way of describing brown diamonds. There is no gemological basis for the term.


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Southerngirl, we addressed the same type of question in a recent thread about "canary" diamonds.  The story is the same for "champagne" diamonds.

Bascially, the "official" GIA color grade term for the type of diamonds you are referring to is "brown." It may be "light brown;" "fancy brown;" "intense brown;" "orange-brown;" "orangish brown;" "pinkish brown;" or any of a bunch of other browns, but, no matter how you look at it, these diamonds are BROWN. 

Now, knowing that BROWN is not a particularly attractive term for describing a diamond, years ago a clever marketing group devised the term "champagne" as a way to make a BROWN diamond more appealing to buyers. It worked. The name stuck. Afterall, don't you feel better knowing that you have an exotic "champagne" diamond, not a common "brown" diamond?

Interestingly, these days, it seems that even "champagne" is not as favored as the new marketing term: "chocolate."  Chocolate diamonds are "in" right now (or at least they were last season on the fashion runways).

So, really, there is no correct or incorrect color range for "champagne," or even "chocolate," for that matter. Whatever pleases you is fine.  Although, I'd imagine that the lighter browns lend themselves best to the title "champagne."

Interesting point... and most champagne looks more yellow toned than brown anyway! Am I remembering correctly that MOST diamonds have yellow in the body color, and that MOST off-color diamonds (low end of the alphabet) are either some form of yellow or brown, and some are even gray, but, many more are yellow than brown and gray?  I can't remember where I'm thinking that I read that, and I could be WAY off base...

Great point omc!
if I was trying to find a substance that closely resembled a light yellow diamond, I'd say champagne was a great analogy.

There's actually a few very good questions here...
In terms of MOST diamonds, and their color...very hard to answer- but if we're specifically discussing gem quality diamonds-that is to say non-industrial use diamonds- meaning that we're including a lot of really low quality commercial grade diamonds-I'd say Brown-or some form of brown- is probably the most common color.

Generally speaking, I always felt that there is no such a thing as an "off-color" diamond.
That is to say, I've seen the diamonds in every different color shade that I found to be very attractive.
For me, it's not the color of a diamond that would make it "off-color".  Among the diamonds I've seen that I really did not like, were a lot of diamonds that were brown-gray.  But that was not the reason that I did not like them.  They were dull, lifeless.

Anyway, when we're discussing the GIA color grading system, generally diamonds that fall below J color, are leaning towards yellow.  GIA will also identify brown in lighter colors.
We have a two carat radiant cut, which is graded L., Faint Brown.  Although a "normal" L color leans toward yellow, GIA makes no comment on this.

I hope that kind of answers T!