Let’s raise a glass to champagne, one of the world’s most successful brands. And please ensure that the sparkling liquid in your glass is not an imposter: unless it comes from the Champagne region of France, it is not officially champagne. By law. Or French law, at least.
While it has plenty of competition (rival sparklers include cava from Catalonia and prosecco from the Veneto region of Italy) champagne’s defenders say its elegant crispness can only be achieved by harvesting grapes from the vineyards around Reims and Epernay, the twin capitals of Champagne. Vines will not flourish beyond a latitude of 50° north. Reims is located at 49° and Epernay at a distinctly chilly 49.5°.
Early autumn is the best time to visit Champagne. Imagine misty golden sunshine and the serried ranks of vines aligned smartly across the hills. The harvest has just been completed, and it has been a bumper year. According to France’s agriculture ministry, production is up 56% on the frankly disastrous 2012. More champagne is good news for the French, which export roughly half their bubbly, bringing in an estimated €2.3 billion (C$3.2 billion) a year.
So why is this particular sparkling wine a byword for luxury and celebration? According to locals, it’s partly because generations of French kings were crowned in the cathedral at Reims and toasted with the region’s wine.
The wine itself was originally a crisp white made by monks. The freshly pressed juices were stored in barrels throughout the winter and began fermenting with the arrival of spring. Early attempts to harness the bubbles were perilous: pressure built up inside the bottles, which often exploded. Only in the 18th century did the glass makers (English, as it happens) produce a bottle thick enough to resist.
Seeing an opportunity, many of the area’s textile merchants moved into the champagne business. Even today, unlike their colleagues in Bordeaux, the leading champagne houses are not growers, but marketers and distributors. A leading brand may use grapes from dozens of different vineyards. In fact, according to the Comité Champagne, there are more than 4,600 growers and only 349 champagne houses.
The Comité Champagne is also responsible for overseeing the brand—and pursuing fakers. In 1993 it stopped Yves Saint Laurent from producing a perfume called Champagne. In the United States it runs an advertising campaign: “Florida oranges from Maine? Gulf shrimp from Nebraska? Champagne not from Champagne? No way!”
The move to protect champagne dates back to the great phylloxera epidemic of the late 19th century, when the tiny bug ravaged vinyards across the region. As the growers struggled to replant, sparkling wine producers from outside the region tried to steal the name. By 1927 the Champagne region’s borders had been fixed by government regulation.
Of course, the champagne houses are skilled marketers in their own right. Take Dom Pérignon, for example, a vintage champagne (meaning that it contains wine from a single harvest, while most champagnes are blends). Legend has it that Dom Pérignon was a monk, and one of the original “inventors” of champagne. That may well be true—but the brand name Dom Pérignon was launched in 1936 by the champagne house Moët et Chandon.
Note also that Moët is part of the giant LVMH (Moët Hennessy–Louis Vuitton) luxury goods empire, as are Ruinart, Veuve Clicquot, Krug and Mercier. So it’s no surprise to see the likes of Scarlett Johansson and Roger Federer advertising Moët’s bubbly with the same verve that they’ve pitched bags and watches.
Dom Pérignon recently made headlines when it teamed up with Jeff Koons for a limited edition gift box. Based on the artist’s 2008 chrome “Balloon Venus” sculpture—that’s to say, Venus as imagined by a crazed maker of balloon animals—the hot pink polyurethane resin box holds a bottle of Dom rosé and can be yours for a mere €15,000 euros (C$21,000 ) via the brand’s website. That’s if the run of 650 hasn’t sold out already. In a nod to young consumers, the partnership was promoted via the brand’s Instagram account.
Meanwhile, Veuve Clicquot relies on the recognition factor of its distinctive orange packaging to sponsor everything from polo matches to art events. This summer it even launched its own airstream trailer, a tiny luxury hotel that it took on a tour of the States. And of course feel free to “like” Veuve on Facebook and follow it on Twitter. The secret to creating a successful luxury brand is to make your consumers feel as though they’re members of an exclusive club—even when the price of entry is only a bottle of champagne.
Mark Tungate is based in Paris. His column from the capital of fashion and luxury appears regularly in Marketing. “Real luxury bubbles up from authenticity” originally appeared as “Bubbling Up” in the Nov. 11 issue of Marketing, on newsstands now.
