Champagne is one of the most successful marketing stories in history. “Champagne has always been well regarded, fashionable and expensive,” the critic Michael Broadbent writes in his 2002 book, Vintage Wine. “Christie’s archives uniquely demonstrate the extraordinarily high regard for it; champagne first appeared in James Christie’s catalogues in 1768, two years after the start of his auction house, and customarily commanded prices twice that of the finest claret.”
This is where it gets really interesting. Broadbent adds: “The real explosion of demand started in the second half of the 19th century, the trade press reporting an unhealthy pressure on prices culminating with the 1874 vintage, the most renowned of that period, which reached record prices at Christie’s. The fin de siècle is associated with extravagant lifestyles in both France and Britain, but, in fact, Chile was the biggest importer of champagne at that period — a period which was not just interrupted but completely knocked off course following the outbreak of world war one.”
The biggest importer of champagne these days is the U.S.: according to the Comité
