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Bottles of champagne could drop to £10 as a result of the recession, experts predicted today.
Even vintage bottles could be reduced to half price by December.
Retailers have started reducing prices after sales of champagne fell by 45 per cent in the first six months of this year. Majestic has made 40 per cent reductions to its Tattinger Brut Reserve (to £23.99) and Veuve Clicquot 2002 (£33.99).
Robert Joseph, of Meininger's Wine Business International Magazine, said: “The big brands will try to keep out of it. We are not going to see £5 bottles of champagne, but it's not impossible that we'll be seeing it at £10 and £15.”
But the reductions may be short-lived. Up to half of the grapes in the Champagne region next year will be left to rot on the vine, reducing production from 405 million bottles to 230 million.
Reader views (7)
Roz,
Not to mention France's champagne "premium". In NE Spain you can get a bottle of Cava produced on a co-operative, which is just as good as a bottle of Moet for about four quid.
- Mark, South-East London, 12/10/2009 12:22
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It's easy to forget that one of the reasons Champagne is so expensive is the amount of tax the British Government puts on it. I know people from all walks of life but I don't think I've ever met a European who has never drunk champagne - one glass at an 'event' (political conference/wedding/whatever) does not mean someone drinks it all the time, just like a holiday on the Costa del Sol doesn't mean you own a mansion with a swimming pool in Spain. As far as I'm aware there is little difference in price between a bottle of champagne bought in a supermarket and a bottle of house wine bought in the average High Street restaurant chain: I've seen wines which retail for £2.50 in South Africa sold at £25 per bottle in London - presumably because that's what Londoners are willing to pay for it.
Personally I have no truck with either snobbery or inverted snobbery: it's all covert aggression stemming from deep personal insecurity. Which ever Government is in power next really needs to kick British self-loathing into touch and then perhaps people would drink champagne simply because they like it.
Personally, I prefer a pint! 
- Roz, France, 09/10/2009 14:29
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Will not be selling many of these to the upper crust 150 quid a bottle tories,thats for sure.
- Dave, london, 09/10/2009 12:44
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There is just a glut in the market following reduced demand at the Tory Conference!
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex, 09/10/2009 12:04
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Nice to see that Labour has kept its promise to put the drinks of the masses, strong cider etc, up whilst enabling the nobler and more refined drinks to be sold below cost.
Perhaps this is the real meaning of Champaign socialist, I will drink a toast to that at the weekend.
- James, City of London, 09/10/2009 10:17
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I could do with them knocking twenty quid of a bottle of Bollinger Grand Annee 1999!
- Mark, South-East London, 09/10/2009 09:42
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How stupendously convenient. Champers @ £5.00 a bottle for the MP's - with hard-working, taxed-to-the-eyeballs Joe Public being forced to pay more for their alcohol through yet more tax increases.
- Reuben Camara, Morecambe Compound, EUSSR, 09/10/2009 09:11
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