France Bets on Champagne Tastes in China

Champagne has long commanded a special reverence in France, where half of global consumption occurs. But few get as excited over opening a bottle of bubbly as patrons of Bar Rouge, a trendy club on Shanghai’s Bund, the colonial-era waterfront boulevard. There, Champagne bottles are served with sparklers, and the bar offers a 10,000 yuan ($1,600) package of six liters of Champagne, a three-liter bottle of vodka, and soft drinks, delivered in a tub of ice by six employees accompanied by dancers. “Even people who are not willing to drink Champagne are willing to pay the money just to get the bathtub and the show,” says Mathieu Brauer, chief executive officer of Visual Orient, the club’s owner.

Now Champagne makers, who saw global sales slide 4.4 percent in 2012, according to industry association CIVC, have come up with a strategy to keep their business from going flat: boost sales in China—something others discovered a decade earlier. After all, another Gallic export, cognac, has become a huge hit there, with the Asian giant now accounting for 24 percent of worldwide shipments, up from 5 percent in 2000. “We think China could change the Champagne market in the coming years,” says Charles-Armand de Belenet, global marketing and communications director at Martell Mumm Perrier-Jouët, the Champagne division of Pernod Ricard. China is the second-biggest export market for Pernod’s Mumm brand and No. 3 for sister label Perrier-Jouët.