Bottles of Champagne are seen on display for sale in a wine shop in Paris, France, March 13, 2025.
Bottles of Champagne are seen on display for sale in a wine shop in Paris, France, March 13, 2025.
French champagne producers do nearly a billion dollars' worth of business with the US every year. But on Friday in Épernay, the world capital of sparkling wine, the only number on anybody's lips was 200.
That was the per cent tariff that President Trump has threatened to impose on champagne and other European wines and spirits exported to the US, in a trade war that exploded in the last week after the European Union countered Trump's penalties on steel and aluminum with its own duties on American products.
The triple-digit menace landed like a thunderbolt in Épernay, rattling workers in nearby fields, producers in small villages and the venerable houses that line the Avenue de Champagne, Épernay's central boulevard and a Unesco Heritage site that oozes tasteful wealth.
"A 200 per cent tariff is designed to make sure that no champagne will be shipped to the US," said Calvin Boucher, a manager at Michel Gonet, a 225-year-old champagne house on the avenue. With 20 to 30 per cent of the 2,00,000 bottles it makes yearly exported to American wine merchants and restaurants, "that business would be crushed," he said, adding that the price of a $125 champagne would more than triple overnight.
Épernay sits in the heart of a region that produces the world's finest bubbly. The US is its biggest foreign market, with 27 million bottles shipped there in 2023, valued at around $885 million.
Chardonnay, pinot noir and meunier grapes blanket the rolling hills and deep valleys of champagne, which covers more than 130 square miles, from the city of Reims to the Aube river. The area is under France's strict Appellation d’Origine system, which ensures that only the sparkling wine made here, using specific methods, can legally be called champagne.
With more than 4,000 independent winemakers and 360 champagne houses, the region produces around 300 million bottles annually, with one billion more resting in cellars. The biggest houses — including Dom Pérignon, Veuve Clicquot and Moët & Chandon, owned by the luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton — dominate production and exports and account for a third of total sales.
But such figures were of little comfort in the wake of Trump's threat. Just off the Avenue de Champagne, Nathalie Doucet, the president of Besserat de Bellefon, a specialty champagne house that exports 10 per cent of its premium production to the US, said the trade war made her anxious.
"We are waiting to see what happens, but it's not good news," said Doucet, whose champagne is made with a laborious low-pressure process that gives it a crisp acidity and fine effervescence.
Champagne already had a tough year with bad weather that had reduced the harvest. Consumption has declined as young people have shifted habits and switched to cocktails and artisanal beer. Champagne sales have thinned since the pandemic, falling 9 per cent last year.
At the same time, she said, Europe is grappling with wars in Ukraine and Gaza. And now the trade war with the US, one of France's traditional allies, over issues that have nothing to do with champagne, has made her feel like collateral damage.
Leah Razzouki, an Épernay resident whose family has worked in the champagne business for generations, said she was infuriated. "Many of our friends are small producers, and they would be hit very hard," she said.
The damage of a trade war would spread far beyond champagne's regal houses, hitting American importers and distributors and putting numerous small businesses at risk.
Michael Reiss, the president of Vineyard Road, a small distributor in Framingham, Mass., that imports Champagne and wines from Europe and distributes them in New England, said small businesses like his, including restaurants and retail shops, would be "very hurt".
Adding to the pain, tariffs applied at the beginning of the supply chain can multiply, as each business handling the product marks it up accordingly, Reiss said. "So even a 25 per cent tariff can easily lead to a 40 to 60 per cent increase in prices," he said.
A 200 per cent tariff "would eliminate the possibility of people buying things that bring them joy in their lives", he added.
New York Times News Service