Napoleon Bonaparte was a champagne lover. While studying at a military academy, he became friends with the heir to Moët & Chandon, now the world’s largest seller of French sparkling wine. Later, as emperor, Napoleon stopped in Épernay on his way to war and back. “In victory, you deserve champagne; in defeat, you need it,” he said.

Champagne has now earned its own triumph. The value of champagne sales reached 6.4 billion euros ($6.9 billion) in 2023; 2021-23 were the best years ever, even after accounting for inflation (see chart). Over the past five years, the Champagne 50 index, which tracks the value of top brands traded on wine-buying platform Liv-ex, has risen 47%, more than any other regional index globally, including Bordeaux (up 1.3%), Burgundy (25%) and Italy (29%). In the past five years, the Wine Advocate has published more articles and reviews on champagne than in the 41 years since its founding, says editor-in-chief William Kelley. (Bottles can only bear the name “champagne” if they come from this region in northeastern France near Épernay.)

On June 20, Sotheby’s will hold the world’s first champagne auction in Paris, which is expected to fetch between 1.5 and 1.9 million euros. From 2022 to 2023, the volume and value of champagne sold by Sotheby’s has almost tripled. Last year, champagne producer Krug was among the top ten wine producers auctioned by the auction house for the first time.

That wine lovers have only recently started enjoying champagne may be surprising. Champagne has long been a luxury brand in its own right, a global symbol of celebration and spending. LVMH, a French luxury goods giant, has bought up champagne companies like a drinker buys bottles: It owns seven, including Dom Pérignon, Krug, Moët & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot. Together, they account for an estimated 46 percent of global champagne sales by value and 23 percent by volume, according to Morgan Stanley’s Edouard Aubin. (The discrepancy arises because LVMH sells many “prestige cuvées,” a fancy-sounding term for expensive bottles.)

Big champagne houses can afford Balthazar-sized advertising budgets. For much of modern history, champagne was “touted as a sparkling drink for sparkling people,” writes Robert Walters in Bursting Bubbles, a book about champagne. It was drunk by rappers and by people who ended their evenings in nightclubs. This “double-edged marketing… both led to champagne’s incredible popularity and damaged its reputation among connoisseurs,” says Walters. Wine lovers didn’t take it very seriously. “Champagne was considered a fine thing, but not necessarily a fine wine,” explains Justin Gibbs of Liv-ex.

However, wine lovers have started to look at their champagne glasses differently. “People now see champagne as a wine, not just a celebratory drink,” says Jamie Graham of British wine merchant Brunswick Fine Wines and Spirits. No longer seen as a mere aperitif to be sipped before moving on to something more serious, champagne is now more widely enjoyed and served with food.

Two things changed. One was Covid, which gave wine lovers more time at home to research and taste new bottles. It might seem odd that a celebratory drink flourished during such a bleak time. But wealthy people who weren’t eating out sought pleasure at home, sometimes bidding on new bottles at online auctions. They also had more time to study Champagne’s terroir and the different methods producers use for blending and adding dosage (a mixture containing cane sugar that sweetens the wine before bottling). In other words, drinkers began to “understand that there is a wine behind the bubble,” says Arthur Larmandier of Larmandier-Bernier, a Champagne house. At first, Mr. Larmandier thought it would take five years for Champagne to recover from Covid; instead, demand skyrocketed and it “took six months.”

The second factor is the greater appreciation for the smaller houses that produce limited quantities of high-quality sparkling wine. Prices for these “vintner” champagnes have skyrocketed on the secondary market: The Wine Market Journal’s Vintner Champagne Index has more than doubled since 2019. Wine lovers now call these winemakers’ surnames with the affection with which soccer players call their teammates: Selosse, Prévost, Collin, Bouchard, Egly-Ouriet. (Selosse, priced at about $650 a bottle, is the Lionel Messi of vintner champagne.)

Winemakers have brought artisanal winemaking techniques to Champagne, relying more on ripe, carefully tended grapes than dosage; this results in lower sugar levels and greater complexity. The appreciation of grower-owned Champagne is linked to a broader trend in culture, including gastronomy, where people are seeking local, authentic producers and tastes, says Mr. Kelley of the Wine Advocate. Further Champagne reviews by Mr. Kelley and other critics have piqued interest from collectors and investors who have found even the highest-quality Champagne undervalued compared to top wines from Burgundy and Bordeaux.

The Champagne producers are disruptors, changing not only the way wine lovers think about French sparkling wine, but also the winemaking practices of some of the biggest houses. Recently, the Grandes Marques have invested more in wines from specific vineyards that can better compete with Champagne from the growing regions. They have also changed their marketing, no longer showing photos of cellar masters in suits in wine cellars, but in plain clothes in vineyards, closer to the vines.

This is not the first transformation of champagne. In the 17th century, when the monk Dom Pérignon made it in his abbey, bubbles were considered a flaw: champagne was then a still wine. (Although Pérignon is considered the “inventor” of champagne, this is just marketing; his famous phrase “Come quickly, I’ll drink the stars!” first appeared in a 19th-century advertisement.) It was not until the 18th century that Champagne began to accept bubbles as both a differentiator and a justification for higher prices.

Highs

What does the future hold? France used to buy the most champagne, but that changed in 2012. Today, America and Japan are important growth markets, says Stéphane Dalyac, CEO of the renowned house Laurent-Perrier. Unlike many companies that sell well-known luxury brands, the sparkling wine producers are not optimistic in the short term about China, where buyers over 40 are less likely to be keen on cold, sparkling champagne, says Dalyac.

But the sun is shining on Champagne in many ways. Climate change is benefiting the region’s wine as the grapes are ripening naturally and therefore less dosage is needed, says Peter Gibson of Wine Market Journal. Many believe the impact of the winemakers’ Champagne will last and increase the quality of the entire region in the years to come.

Recently, Champagne houses, thirsting for higher profits, have decided to raise prices sharply to capitalize on the boom, thinking drinkers would tolerate it. However, demand for some fine wines has stalled, driving wine indices down. Inflation in general and economic uncertainty have also made consumers hold back. Champagne houses may be forced to revise their prices slightly downward to keep demand high. Let’s call it a Champagne problem.

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