When Champagne Became French

What could be more French than champagne? In this fascinating book, historian Kolleen Guy shows that, surprisingly, our idea of champagne as part of French national identity was only created and popularised at the turn of the 20th century.

I enjoyed how she details the debates and discussions amongst grape growers, winemakers, and government officials, and shows how champagne’s rise to glory was never guaranteed.  This book has been hugely influential to me because it shows how (and why) to scrutinize the popular history of food and drink by demonstrating how the mystique of champagne was created. This is an… show more.

This prize-winning book is an impeccably researched and very readable history of champagne, the only wine that’s a household name. Kolleen Guy traces the way champagne, even though a latecomer after the wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy, became more closely identified with France and Frenchness. Focusing on the period from the early 1800s to the early 1900s, Guy traces the way champagne houses carefully constructed an image of champagne that complemented the nation-building process that was underway at the same time. It’s a fine demonstration of the way that wine is often connected to broad political and cultural currents.