Britain’s champagne moment

It was not the famed Dom Perignon, cellar master of the Abbey of Hauteville, who invented champagne, although our French cousins are loathe to admit it: as with cricket, football, ping pong and nearly everything else, it was the British - according to Patrick Forbes, the historical authority on champagne.

In the 17th century wine from the Marne Valley was shipped to England in barrels. Because one year the weather was particularly cold there, it was shipped before the fermentation had finished and then stored in a warm warehouse. There, a secondary fermentation took place, turning a rather acidic, ordinary white wine into a lively and refreshing sparkling wine - and so the world's greatest brand was born.

Champagne describes both the area surrounding the river Marne in northern France and the process of making sparkling wine. There are nearly 30,000 hectares of grapes in Champagne and 18,000 growers (8,000 with less than half a hectare) - the countryside is owned by peasants, not the large champagne houses. They - Moet & Chandon, Veuve Cliquot, Louis Roederer etc - may own less than 15 per cent of the vineyards but they sell nearly 70 per cent of the champagne made, by dint of buying in grapes from the thousands of small growers.

There are a few small champagne houses that use their own grapes - and this is where real value for money and quality are to be found. Serge Mathieu is one such family firm - their champagne is top quality and under £20 a bottle.

Good sparkling wine is made the world over, but there is really only one name at the very top of the sparkling tree - champagne. Why? They have been doing it for 300 years, and have spent an awful lot of money in cleverly marketing the brand. But most importantly, as with all really good wine, the Champagne area has a marginal climate (ie cold) and a long growing season.

But it was we British who invented it! ·