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LONDON - France's reputation for luxury is fizzing with the news that French wines and spirits group Pernod Ricard is to make the world's most expensive champagne.
A bottle of Perrier Jouet's Belle Epoque will cost just over $1900, more than 50 times dearer than the cheapest champagne available in supermarkets.
Pernod chairman Patrick Ricard announced the product in answer to a shareholder's question about the company's strategy for competing with luxury groups such as LVMH, which owns Krug and Moet et Chandon.
Saying the Pernod group would make the world's most expensive champagne, he told the annual meeting it would cost about £670 ($1907) a bottle.
"We won't do many cases and won't be offering it here."
Mr Ricard appeared to be announcing Pernod's intent to shake up the multi-billion-pound champagne business, which is dominated by long-established players, by producing an ultra-premium product.
The conglomerate has only been making champagne for a year after taking control of the Mumm and Perrier Jouet brands following the $19 billion takeover of British drinks giant Allied Domecq in August last year.
A spokeswoman for Pernod Ricard, which makes Beefeater gin, Malibu and Jacob's Creek, believed demand existed for such a costly bubbly, saying: "There is a global trend to develop more and more premium and ultra-premium brands."
Global champagne sales have performed well year after year for France against a slump in still wines that has left New World countries taking ever larger shares of the world market.
However, there was uncertainty among experts about how much value drinkers would derive from quaffing such an expensive bottle of sparkling wine, whatever its credentials.
Although vintage champagnes sell for up to £1000, new champagne bottles barely clink past the £200 barrier.
Ronan Sayburn, head of wine at Gordon Ramsay's restaurants in London, recalled that makers of armagnac and cognac demanded £1800 a bottle for centuries old blends.
He was unsure the same trick would work for champagne.
"I am sure they will have buyers because people have money to spend and they want exclusivity," he said.
"But there is a trade-off point where the price and the actual flavour of the wine begin to split. When you are paying more than £500 for a wine, it is not going to get any better in flavour. What you are getting after that is exclusivity, rarity."
Mr Sayburn suggested the world's most expensive champagne might be a relatively short-term investment in wine terms.
Although the flavour of many champagnes improves during cellaring, after about 30 years the bubbles start to fade.
Asked whether a £670 champagne could ever be worth the price, another expert, Adam Lechmere, editor of Decanter.com, said: "It's like asking whether Wayne Rooney's wages are justified.
"It depends what you think you are buying. "If you are trying to impress someone and you are into conspicuous consumption, then £700 is not a lot of money."
Mr Lechmere noted, however, that differences in taste between champagnes tended to become harder to detect after the £40 level.
"It's not all emperor's new clothes but once you have started getting into the higher reaches of Cristal and Krug and Dom Perignon you are going beyond the intrinsic value of the wine to market forces," he said.
"What drives that is scarcity and perceived value."
- INDEPENDENT
