REIMS, France - Many champagne producers dismiss the idea that their sophisticated tipple could ever be made in England. But in the past couple of years, at least two of the best-known French houses have looked at vineyards across the English Channel, where similar chalky soils and warming temperatures have prompted interest in British wine growing.
Executives from Duval-Leroy and Champagne Louis Roederer have toured vineyards in southern English counties such as Kent and Sussex.
Neither Duval-Leroy nor Roederer has bought land or gone into business with English growers. But Stephen Skelton, a wine consultant, said he expected that a large champagne house could do so.
"Warmer temperatures are making life a lot easier for wine growers in England, especially if you are growing champagne varieties," said Skelton, who led Roederer executives on a tour of English vineyards in September.
At the same time, the Champagne region, east of Paris, has never had it so good.
Demand for champagne is rocketing in emerging markets such as Russia.
Champagne houses and wine growers are discussing how to enlarge the tiny area of land where champagne grapes may be grown.
And the region has benefited from changes in the weather.
Higher average temperatures in Champagne have prompted earlier blooming and earlier grape harvests, along with better maturation of grapes and much stronger yields.
But the growing ambition of the English sparkling wine industry and the improving quality of its wines are touchy subjects.
Egon Ronay, a food critic in Britain who gives out the British Academy of Gastronomes awards, expressed frustration that a range of English sparkling wines made by RidgeView could not be called champagne. RidgeView received the award last year.
"The fact that they cannot call it champagne is an absurdity and I take great issue with this silly rule," Ronay told Decanter.com, an online news service for the industry.
Supporters of English sparkling wines say that they regularly hold their own against the top champagnes in blind taste tests. Mike Roberts, the founder and director of RidgeView, said that his vineyard's sparkling wines had been served at the British Embassy in Paris and at Queen Elizabeth II's 80th birthday in 2006.
In France, champagne falls under "Appellation d'origine controlee," a category protected by the French government to distinguish products from specific geographical areas.
Under those rules, only about 32,000 hectares, or 79,000 acres, of vineyards in Champagne may supply the three grape varieties to be used in the wine called champagne: pinot noir, chardonnay, and pinot meunier.
Some producers have increasingly been using their expertise to produce sparkling wines from such countries as South Africa and New Zealand.
But Stephen Charters, who researches the champagne business at the Reims Management School, said that champagne producers were cautious about buying land in England, even though land prices there were far lower than in Champagne.
