Making champagne is a big business in the sunny south of France. Benedictine monks invented it in the Abbey of Saint-Hilaire, near Carcassonne in 1531, although that’s another story. Nowadays the industry supports 100,000’s of jobs from vineyards to exquisite restaurants in city malls. However, dining out is not the same when COVID takes the bubbles out champagne.
Celebrations Over as COVID Takes the Bubbles Out Champagne
France had a near perfect vintage in 2020. The grapes are pressed and a billion bottles of bubbly are perfecting in cellars. But the order books are down according to champagne producer Bernard Beaulieu, when speaking to BBC’s Hugh Schofield. That’s because “who feels like celebrating when there’s a potential virus on the lip of every cut-glass flute,” he says.
However, the fault lines have been building in the industry for decades, the renowned vintner says. That’s because young people are drinking less wine, and champagne is not the only bubbly drink on the market. This led us to wondering what other industry fault lines are revealing, while COVID takes the bubbles out champagne.
Will the World Ever Really Be the Same After COVID-19
There’s no doubt human beings dropped their guards, after the 1918 Spanish Flu H1N1 pandemic faded from memory. Other U.S. epidemics have been and gone. Here we remember smallpox, yellow fever, cholera, scarlet fever, typhoid, diphtheria, and polio. We blocked them all, but we really only have smallpox licked for now.
All those diseases took their toll on society while they raged. But today we see an uptick in opposition to vaccines while confidence reigns. COVID has taken the bubbles out of champagne for a while. However, it will return because of money invested in it. Other industries involving close proximity of people may not. But will we be sharing glasses of champagne again soon? Well that’s another story for another day.
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Preview Image: The Bubbles in Champagne
