Pop stars: how to choose a sparkling champagne

Shall we have a glass of champagne?' might just be the most sonorous sentence in the English language. Champagne is so much more than a drink. It was first popularised in this country in the late 17th century by Charles II who, writes André Simon in The History of the Champagne Trade in England, tiring of sack, claret and Madeira, 'longed for some new wine more original, lighter, more exhilarating and extravagant than any then known'.

Today, a mere flute of it, the colour of pale honey, energetic with pinprick bubbles, still signals razzmatazz, conspiracy, excitement and sybaritism. If you have one in your hand, things must be going well. But what happens when you take a sip? Does a warm sense of satisfaction creep through you? Or is there a distressing moment of emptiness, a void as you register fizz, acidity and not much more? And if so, will that stop you coming back for more? Very likely it won't.

Champagne is the most successful brand in the world, and the Champenois have been no slouches when it comes to ensuring it stays that way. It's not just the millions that the grandes marques pour into advertising and sponsorship of F1 racing cars and polo matches, each year the CIVC - Champagne's controlling body - issues 250 to 400 claims against those who dare to piggy-back on the name, or 'trivialise the appellation'.

'It's a big mistake,' Philippe Wibrotte of the CIVC told me, as we chatted in Epernay on a cold December day. He's not joking. So far the CIVC has triumphed over Yves Saint Laurent, which was forced to rename a perfume it had launched as 'Champagne', stopped Mohammed Al Fayed selling purple-clad bottles of water for cats and dogs labelled 'Millennium Vintage' in Harrods, and beaten off many other perceived attacks. 'It doesn't matter how small the case,' says a leading light of the trade. 'They'll just chuck money at it until the opposition dies.'

Then there's the fact that production quantities are controlled with the same canny ferocity that De Beers has applied to the supply of diamonds. In April 2003, with a rich world thirsty for champagne, the Institut National des Appellations d'Origine (which regulates appellations d'origine contrôlées in France) received a request to substantially expand the region, a move that champagne expert Tom Stevenson estimates would create £6 billion of extra wealth for landowners with holdings within the (heavily politically contested) new boundaries.

This year, with champagne sales atrophied by the financial crisis (exports fell by 36 per cent in the first half of the year), it was decreed that yields must be reduced so that the 2009 harvest would be up to 40 per cent lower to satisfy the powerful houses sitting on massive stocks of unsold wine.

I have come this far without really paying attention to the characteristic you might think ought to be most important: what does the stuff taste like? That's because it sometimes feels as if too many drinkers don't drink champagne enough to know what they're doing - and the houses know it. 'A lot of what goes on with persuading people to buy a certain champagne is smoke and mirrors,' says one supermarket buyer.

Most people have a label that at some point in their lives they have decided is their champagne, and they cling to it forever. Consider Veuve Clicquot, whose smart tangerine label and sponsorship of several events across the season has made it the default choice of the tennis and pony set. And yet: 'Who knew, I don't like Veuve Clicquot, and I've been buying it for years,' emailed a friend after she went on a wine course and tasted a line-up of champagnes blind, stripped of the labels that have so much resonance. She's not the only one. 'When we do a tasting of champagne at our wine school, NV Veuve is always the one that confounds most expectations,' says a wine tutor. 'They think they'll like it and they don't.'

All this confusion is not exactly our fault. At the lower end of the scale, champagne producers often don't make it easy to work out what's going on inside a bottle. That's partly because in Champagne a process known as sur latte goes on, which essentially means that a champagne house can buy a bottle of almost-finished wine from anyone and stick their own label on it. Boutique producers, whose sales do depend on taste, wouldn't dream of it. The larger houses would never admit to it. But talk to small growers and co-ops and they will attest that it does happen, though they couldn't possibly say who they're selling to.

Because brand is king, there are other kinds of fudging, too. Here, for example, is a transcript of the Sir Humphrey-esque conversation I recently had with a chap from Tesco while tasting a (rather good for the price, but distinctly patchy, in that all five bottles I tried were very different from one another) fizz they are currently selling for £14 online.