French Champagne producers do nearly a billion dollars’ worth of business with the United States every year. But on Friday in Épernay, the world capital of sparkling wine, the only number on anybody’s lips was 200, reports The New York Times.
That was the percent tariff that President Trump has threatened to impose on Champagne and other European wines and spirits exported to the United States, in a trade war that exploded this past week after the European Union countered Mr. 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 percent tariff is designed to make sure that no Champagne will be shipped to the United States,” said Calvin Boucher, a manager at Michel Gonet, a 225-year-old Champagne house on the avenue. With 20 to 30 percent of the 200,000 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 United States is its biggest foreign market, with 27 million bottles shipped there in 2023, valued at around 810 million euros ($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.