CHAMPAGNE SOCIETY

Champagne, that most aristocratic of libations, is at crossroads. Exports have now overtaken domestic consumption of the French sparkling wine that Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon is, according to popular mythology at least, often said to have invented in 1693. While France may no longer be consuming the lion’s share of champagne — which to properly be called that must be produced in the country’s Champagne region — the rest of the world certainly is certainly lapping it up, though champagne’s dominance in a new world of sparkling wines is no longer assured.

However, along with most purists, we feel that for any celebration really worth the name, nothing but the