ABSTRACT
In the late nineteenth century, the trade body of Champagne’s ‘Grande Marque’ houses won a series of bitterly fought legal actions that ensured that the producers of the Champagne region had exclusive right to the term ‘champagne’. Soon after the final legal victory in 1887, the champagne industry initiated a branding and marketing campaign to change champagne’s image from a wine of new money and new immorality into that of a wine sanctified by Dom Pérignon and produced from an almost paradisiacal terroir. For visitors to the Paris ‘Expositions’ of 1889 and 1900, the Epernay journalist Raphael Bonnedame wrote a paean to his native district. Quelques mots sur le Vin de Champagne mythologised the wine as embodying the inspirational spirit of a utopian district characterised by beauty, wit and elegance and revitalised the myth of Dom Pérignon. His work laid the foundations for the cultural terroir that still underpins champagne’s brand image. This was the first territorial brand of the modern era and while the fundamental marketing strategies of modern champagne were created in London in the mid-nineteenth century, the brand image showcased by the websites of today was inspired by a journalist of genius in the late nineteenth century.
