A row has broken out in Champagne. Not the fun kind that ends with popping corks, sabres and bad dancing, but a rather tone-deaf dispute between the rich, and the even richer, about money, class and who gets to drink what.
This week, the chief executive of Lanson Bruno Paillard (worth €100m) accused Bernaud Arnault (worth €150bn), founder of LVMH – the luxury goods group behind Moët & Chandon and Dom Pérignon – of driving up grape prices to such an extent that “ordinary families” are being priced out of champagne altogether.
Shipments from the region have already fallen sharply – by 99 million bottles in four years – and producers are increasingly anxious about who, exactly, their wine is now for.
It is a question which, in Britain – champagne’s second-largest export market – comes about a decade too late. We have been drinking more prosecco than champagne since 2014. Last year, an English blanc de blancs became the first non-champagne to win best sparkling wine at a major international competition. And a £15 Aldi bottle was recently named the best champagne in the world.
In other words, the whole argument feels slightly beside the point. Champagne hasn’t just become too expensive for “ordinary families”. Ordinary families don’t even think it’s cool any more.
There was a time when turning up to a party with a bottle of Moët or Dom Pérignon signalled something. Taste, perhaps. Generosity, certainly. A vague sense that you understand how things were done. Champagne was not just a gold-topped shorthand for effort; it was the safe bet.
Now? It’s like bringing a box of stale chocolates from the petrol station because you couldn’t think of anything better.
The shift has been gradual, but it is now measurable. Global champagne shipments fell 2 per cent in 2025, marking the third consecutive year of decline and bringing volumes to their lowest level in two decades outside of the pandemic.
Even in France, still champagne’s largest market, demand is slipping, with domestic sales falling by 4.2 million bottles. Compared with the post-pandemic high of 2022, the industry is now shipping roughly 60 million fewer bottles a year.
Sales in the UK are also under pressure to recover. After a bruising 2024, when shipments of champagne from France to the UK fell by around 13 per cent to their lowest level this century, volumes have ticked back up slightly. But the value of those sales fell and the average price per bottle dropped by nearly 10 per cent.
In other words, champagne isn’t so much rebounding as recalibrating, but it is cheaper, often supermarket-led and increasingly divorced from the luxury image the region has spent decades building.
In its place, other bottles have quietly taken over. Prosecco remains the dominant force, accounting for around half of the UK’s sparkling wine market by value, a position it has held for years. For a country that tends to drink casually rather than ceremonially, it’s hard to beat: affordable, widely available and reliably pleasant. But the more interesting shift is happening slightly higher up the ladder.
English sparkling wine, once a novelty, is now a serious contender. Top producer Chapel Down said sales rose by 19 per cent last year, with over 1 million bottles sold in a 12-month period for the first time. In 2025, Nyetimber’s Blanc de Blancs 2016 became the first non-champagne wine to win the Champion Sparkling Wine Trophy at the International Wine Challenge, as well as Sparkling Winemaker of the Year for a second time (the first was in 2018). It’s a milestone that would have seemed unlikely not long ago. The message is clear: excellence is no longer confined to northeastern France.
At the same time, crémant – produced with the same traditional method as champagne across regions such as Alsace and the Loire – has emerged from the shadows. Sales in the UK have increased from 9 per cent to over 50 per cent at major retailers like Waitrose and M&S. Often softer, creamier and less aggressively acidic, and usually at a significantly lower price, it is no longer framed as a compromise. For many drinkers, it is simply a better choice.
But the real threat to champagne’s claim of inherent superiority may not come from rival houses or burgeoning wine regions, but from the UK’s cheapest supermarket – an awkward development for a class war being fought at the very top. Aldi’s Veuve Monsigny champagne brut, typically priced around £15, was named the world’s best champagne at the World Champagne Awards last year. In fact, Lanson, Moët and Dom Pérignon didn’t even place in the top three.
It is difficult to overstate how disruptive that is. Not because one award changes everything – there are, after all, countless competitions, each with its own politics and pecking orders – but because it crystallises a broader shift. If a £15 bottle can be judged the best in the world, what exactly are you paying for when you spend £50?
Aldi has not just democratised champagne. It’s exposed it.
In an era of rising costs and greater awareness of where our money is actually going, conspicuous spending has lost its appeal. Being seen to spend wisely – to find value, to make a smart choice – carries its own kind of status. Champagne, with its heavy reliance on branding and heritage, has been struggling to adapt for years.
Under the influence of groups such as LVMH, the category has leaned further into luxury, emphasising prestige cuvées and high-end positioning. That strategy has worked at the very top, where demand for ultra-premium bottles remains strong. But it has left a gap in the middle – one that savvy operators like Aldi have been quick to fill.
There are, of course, structural challenges. Climate change is beginning to reshape the geography of sparkling wine, with warmer temperatures affecting both harvests in Champagne and making southern England increasingly viable. The conditions that once defined champagne are no longer exclusive to it.
All of which makes the current talk of a “class war” within champagne feel, well, kind of pointless. The suggestion that ordinary drinkers are being priced out implies that they wanted to drink it in the first place. In the UK, at least, that doesn’t seem to be the case. They’ve found something else they like to drink just as much, if not more.
So while we wait for the millionaires and billionaires of Champagne to catch up with what the rest of us realised a decade ago, it may be worth considering what you bring to your next dinner party. You could turn up with a “safe Moët”. Or you could make the more interesting move – the cooler one, if such things matter – and bring something else: a crémant from Alsace, an award-winning English sparkling wine or the best champagne in the world, which just happens to come from Aldi.
And, if all else fails, there’s always a box of chocolates from the petrol station.