Whatever happened to $5 bubbly?

[lsanderson]

Champagne Beyond the Big Names
By AMY CORTESE

WHEN it comes to Champagne, are you a slave to fashion?

Americans are preparing to indulge in the traditional holiday bubblefest: more than 360 million glasses of sparkling wine are expected to be consumed over the holiday season, according to a new tally by M. Shanken Communications. Sparkling wines are made all over the world, but those hailing from the Champagne region of France — the only ones that can be called Champagne — have a special cachet.

Among the offerings, a handful dominate: Moët & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot together account for 55 percent of Champagne sold in the United States. These two blockbuster brands, along with Krug, Ruinart and Mercier, are owned by the luxury giant LVMH. In fact, the top Champagne brands are almost all owned by conglomerates, which churn out millions of bottles annually while spending heavily to market an image of luxury.

Against this backdrop, a relatively new genre of Champagne, made by independent grower-producers, has been quietly gaining a foothold. Many of these small, family-owned vineyards have long supplied the big houses with grapes: land in Champagne is limited, so big makers rely on the 20,000 or so small farmers across the region for their grapes, which they blend together. About 2,000 of these farmers make their own bubbly, the best of which is increasingly available in the United States. More