The night they invented Champagne... Now there's a thought! Well it certainly became an overnight sensation and saw the start of an era where a glass of bubbly was synonymous with luxury, opulence or simply having a good time.

For the past 80 years Champagne has been the drink of celebration, guzzled with gusto at smart parties, weddings, christenings, anniversaries and receptions.

Personally I've never been much of a fan but there are plenty who are. It is routinely used to launch everything from films to ocean-going liners. Racing drivers spray gallons of it over themselves while generations of debutantes and hooray Henrys have sailed into society on a sea of the stuff. Some are convinced that, during the Henley Regatta, a significant part of the Thames becomes at least 50 per cent Bollinger.

Others seem to believe it has almost magical properties. When told by doctors to give up drink the Hollywood star David Niven famously decided to stick to a Champagne-only regime, arguing that it wasn't really booze.

The artist Francis Bacon, on ordering bottles of bubbly for his guests, would raise his glass and deliver the toast "Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends."

Meanwhile an entire industry has grown up around creating sparkling wines that look a bit like "champers" but cost a fraction of the price. These range from rather good impersonations to concoctions that taste as though they should be used for cleaning the silver.

The fact is that Champagne and Champagne-style drinks are more popular than ever. But there's a problem. Binge drinking Britain (which apparently drinks nearly 40 million bottles of the stuff every year) is just one major consumer and now there's simply not enough to go round.

So the French - pragmatic to the last - have announced that they intend to expand the region in which Champagne is officially allowed to be produced.

This cynical money-grabbing bid to extend the coveted appellation d'origine contrôlée, which since 1927 has been considered the only place on the planet where the climate and soil provide the necessary conditions to produce genuine Champagne, strikes meas pure greed.

Perhaps rather than attempting to slake the thirst of any and every potential customer, the Champagne industry might benefit from claiming back its reputation for exclusivity.

Global warming and climate change probably mean that Champagne's days are numbered anyway. Why not go out on a high - remembered for its quality and taste, not as something that in its latter years simply lost its class.