The Business of Champagne: A Delicate Balance

The world of champagne offers a fascinating insight into the complexity of modern business management and marketing. Champagne is at the same time a wine, a luxury product and a regional brand - it is tied to the place from which it comes, and can be made nowhere else. It therefore highlights a range of characteristics which make it interesting to the modern business world.

This is the first book to offer a complete overview of the way in which champagne as a product is organized, managed and marketed and what its future prospects are. The book covers the entire range of issues surrounding the management of the champagne industry by reviewing the current context of champagne (structural, economic and legal), the role of ’place’ (identity and terroir and tourism), marketing the ’myth’ of champagne (image and competitive advantage) and the management of the industry (accountability, people and the territorial brand). The book brings together leading academics and examines the champagne region from multidisciplinary perspectives.

Examining the champagne region provides insight into a range of management, production-management, branding and consumer-related issues and will be of interest to students, researchers and academics interested in Gastronomy, Wine Studies, Tourism, Hospitality, Marketing and Business.

Steve Charters is Chair of Champagne Management and Director of the Reims Research Centre for Wine-Place-Value, France, as well as being a Master of Wine.