It’s hard to talk about a champagne boom in India. And yet, interesting things are happening in the champagne market. At one level this makes sense. Champagne is the most famous wine in the world. Nearly everyone who drinks wine (and even many of those who hardly ever touch much alcohol) has drunk champagne at some stage, usually as soon part of a celebration.

The association of champagne with celebrations has worked to the benefit of the makers of champagne, making it the best-selling expensive wine in the world. But it has also worked against appreciation of the qualities of various champagnes.

But first the basics: champagne is a sparkling wine (usually white though some rose is also bottled) from the Champagne region of France. The French guard the name with a zealous intensity. Thanks to international treaties no other sparkling wine in the world can be called champagne.

There are, of course, many other good sparkling wines all over the world but they cannot be called champagne. Because champagne can be expensive, a market has now developed for cheaper sparkling wines such as Prosseco........

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