Is Champagne's bubble about to burst?

France's historic region says it can preserve the legendary sparkling wine; however, its hedonistic subtleties can be reproduced in other parts of the world.

- Lara Williams

Champagne and its bubbles are at an existential crossroads. And it's not just because US President Donald Trump has threatened to place a 200 per cent tariff on wine from the European Union – a mighty menace because the US is the largest importer of champagne.

I got a sense of a broader and deeper crisis from Ms Severine Frerson, the first female Chef de Cave at the 200-year-old Maison Perrier-Jouet.

"The first vintage I could really sense climate change was 2003," Ms Frerson says. "It was very hot, and very dry." The harvest that year was the earliest on record at the time in Champagne. The grapes were ready to be picked in August, a month-early jolt to the calendar that left the industry "very surprised" and in a "panic".

Because of the extreme heat, the grapes ripened rapidly, leading to high levels of sugar and potential alcohol, and low levels of the acidity needed for the wine's characteristic freshness. As one winemaker told the magazine Decanter at the time: "A number of bunches suited raisin production better than bubbles."

That scorching harvest has been matched in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023, with many years coming close. In the meantime, other parts of the world are becoming more conducive to making champagne-style sparkling wines than Champagne itself as the world's climate shifts – places like Denmark, Japan, Hungary and England.

Can a region and a product so stringently determined by rules and tradition find a way out of climate change's grasp? I believe it can. But here's the conceptual challenge: We must all accept that the champagne of tomorrow will not be the champagne of today.