Just because it has bubbles is no reason to call it Champagne. Yet that’s what some writers suggest is the beverage to consider for the upcoming holidays.
Indeed, using the term “champagne” with a lower-case c will incur the wrath of some French citizens who consider that the word itself must be capitalized and never used generically. It refers, they say, to the district of that name, and to the classic bubbly that has for hundreds of years been an unmitigated triumph.
World Series locker rooms indeed!
So, by extension, “California Champagne” is a phrase that has irked the French for decades and one that people in the Champagne district of France think is a fraud. Legally, many nations now are restricted from using the term “Champagne” to refer to sparkling wine, including the United States, though a few U.S. producers are grandfathered in and may still use it….