Who could possibly feel sorry for Champagne?

The region and its wines are forever being presented as the very spirit of excellence, success and the celebration of both; the wine of the rich, the powerful, the ones who have made it.

Well, that’s the image the advertisements try to put across, at least; the reality couldn’t be more starkly different.

It’s not the most promising of regions, if you look at it from a purely geographic point of view – Champagne is at the northern edge of the world’s wine-producing latitudes and the weather isn’t ideal. There are also other challenges, with a complex series of rules governing production, a unique relationship between growers and the large houses and a famously complex production process.

Despite all that, it produces some of the world’s most famous wines and it is the yardstick by which all sparkling wines are measured, but the challenges keep on piling up.

Growers are getting restive over yields and price levels, organic growers are concerned about a lack of support and an over-reliance on soaking the land with chemicals and there is a growing rift between growers generally and the Champagne houses – indeed, there is some tension between those houses owned by the hugely powerful LVMH and the rest, too.