IF you think Champagne (with the capital C) is too expensive, spare a few minutes and take a glass of sparkling wine with M. Andre Enders. He will run out facts and figures which will almost have you weeping into your bubbly in sympathy with the fellows who make it in the world's most renowned wine region.
To guarantee quality in the finished product, stringent rules and regulations are laid down by the Comite Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne, the alert industry watchdog.
These apply to all 15,000 growers who lovingly tend vines around 300 villages on the 30,000 regulated hectares in the Department of Champagne, 232 kilometres northeast of Paris. It is on this land, and here only, that specified grapes can be grown which bear the proud word, Champagne. Not only are the grape varieties restricted (to pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot meunier) but the all-powerful committee declares when the fruit can be handpicked.
About 1.2 kilograms of grapes are needed for each bottle. This year, an enormous bumper crop has just been picked averaging 11,000 kilos per hectare. At $32 per kilo, that has made the growers happy. But it will inevitably put up the price.
Once picked, the grapes are crushed as close as possible to the vineyard to ensure freshness and quality. Operating those 300 local presses costs more money. Then inspectors follow every litre of juice to the registered wineries with the famous names where the young wine is laid in casks for maturating and eventual blending. These are yet more costly steps in the process.
This year there will be a big production equal to 280 million bottles of bubbly. While this may sound sufficient to throw an office party, M. Enders warns of a very real danger ahead; even now, leading hotels and restaurants - and canny consumers - are laying down stocks of Champagne to celebrate the New Year's Eve that will welcome the year 2000.
So be warned; if you plan to pop a cork to mark the millennium, dash out and invest now.
