Champagne is Fizzling in France!

While we celebrate California Wine Month here in the States, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the French Champagne industry in suffering.

With worldwide sales expected to be down almost 25% from the high set in 2007 of 339 million bottles, the French Champagne producers have agreed to let almost a third of this year's crop rot on the ground rather than add to their backlog of unsold product or even worse in their minds, discount their product.

According to the Journal, this is the first time since the bumper crop of 1955, that the French have not harvested all of the usable grapes. Since it takes at least two years for the grapes being picked now to actually reach market as Champagne, we can only hope that next two years crops don't fail, or there could be a severe shortage of one of the finest regional products in the world.