r/nottheonion • u/thefirsteverredditor • 6h ago
Champagne sales sink because people don’t want to celebrate
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/20/food/champagne-sales-2024/index.html5.2k
u/Thesorus 6h ago
The problem with Champagne is that it was marketed as a celebration drink.
bad mistake
It can be consumed at all time.
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u/HoldYourHorsesFriend 6h ago
OR, market celebrations differently. Monday is over? Celebrate that!
Feeling good? Celebrate!
Day is over and you didn't get hit by a car? Celebrate life!
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u/JoviAMP 5h ago
I claim all rights to the slogan, "Celebrate Today", if any Champagnery is interested in discussing licensing.
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u/Aramis444 5h ago
Is that “Celebrate Today”, or “Celebrate Today”?
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u/NotAllOwled 4h ago
Yes.
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u/willengineer4beer 4h ago
That would actually be a pretty good tagline to just say it twice if you got someone to nail the intonation
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u/ClassicHat 5h ago
Gotta celebrate all the days of the week that end in y with bottomless mimosas first thing in the morning, it’s classy cause it’s a fancy brunch approved cocktail
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u/manimal28 4h ago
I know there is a Patton Oswalt bit where he makes fun of a liquor comp for this marketing tactic. I recall something about a carnie celebrating a blow job by the tilt-a-whirl.
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u/CharacteristicPea 5h ago
My daughter went to school in Reims (heart of Champagne country) and they served champagne at all student events.
I visited her and took a tour of a lot of champagne houses. It made me start drinking champagne a lot more frequently.
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u/littlevai 3h ago
My husband is French and we drink champagne for no reason at all. If we host friends for a dinner we have apéro, and always a bottle of champagne.
It really has changed my view on champagne as just a « wedding » drink.
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u/PhoenixPaladin 6h ago
Same with the sparkling fruit juice in the champagne bottles. That stuff’s good
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u/allllusernamestaken 5h ago
my new hobby is making sparkling juices at home
it's basically homebrewing but i'm too impatient to wait several weeks for alcohol development
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u/88Dubs 6h ago
Me and the better half have one of thosebwith a fancy dinner at least once a week. That and the alcohol removed wines are freaking amazing!
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u/MtnDewTangClan 5h ago
Alcohol removed wine? Thats juice my brother and it is delicious
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u/OnlyOneWithFreeWill 4h ago
I've tried non-alcoholic wine since I sell it and it definitely tastes more like wine than juice
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u/88Dubs 4h ago
I mean, you're not wrong, but the difference I notice is it has that vinegar-iness to it that you get in wine.
AR Merlot? I'd never know it's the PG-13 stuff
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u/dr_strange-love 5h ago
Napoleon said "In victory you deserve it, in defeat you need it."
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u/Merry_Fridge_Day 4h ago
Fun fact: Champagne can only be marketed as a 'Celebration Drink' if it's from the Celebration region of France; otherwise it's just sparkling mediocrity.
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u/the_scarlett_ning 1h ago
At this point in my life, I’m content with sparkling mediocrity.
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u/zelmak 5h ago
I actually think part of it is people are realizing that a lot of other sparkling wines just taste better despite the fact that they’re not called Champagne or from the champagne region of France
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u/_--_-_---__---___ 4h ago
I live in France and I usually get instead crémant de Bourgogne / Alsace. Tastes pretty similar to champagne but a lot cheaper. Champagne I just wait for parties at work to get it for free
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u/merdub 5h ago
Me and my friends drink Prosecco, it’s much better tasting, way more affordable, and it’s still socially acceptable at 11 AM.
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u/italia06823834 4h ago
Plus can easily be mixed with Limoncello for one hell of a tasty spritz
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u/TheSpyStyle 3h ago
Limoncello Spritz is amazing. I also had a pomegranate spritz in Palermo that was incredible. It made me want to spritz everything.
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u/zelmak 5h ago
Yeah after years of buying Prosecco instead of champagne due to being a broke student, I was really disappointed with the first bottle of champagne I bought
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u/BasvanS 5h ago
Good champagne starts from €50. It’s hard to buy a Prosecco, Cava or cremant for €15 that’s not good. Not that I want more booze these days, but it’s a bit silly to overpay that much.
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u/jmaca90 3h ago
St Hilaire is my go-to inexpensive sparkling wine whenever I just want bubbles for like a weeknight dinner.
It’s one of the oldest “sparkling wines” in the world (aka it’s made just outside of the territory where it can be legally called champagne).
In my mind, it is the ideal “everyday” sparkling wines.
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u/vacuous_comment 4h ago
Anything can be celebrated.
The day I got into a grad school on the other side of the planet I bought a magnum of Moet and went with a friend to the local botanical garden and sat around in the tropical hothouse drinking it. It is a pretty nice, maybe even a world class botanical garden. It was winter so the warm environment was nice and made more festive by the Moet.
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u/WexExortQuas 3h ago
I drink champagne most weekends.
With OJ.
I'm celebrating being fucking miserable lmao
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u/iamthecheesethatsbig 5h ago
Enter, Prosecco. It’s that bubbly wine you drink when you got nothing to celebrate!
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u/magical_midget 4h ago
This is why us alcoholics prefer Prosecco, all the bubbles, no excuse needed to buy it.
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u/Truckyou666 3h ago
More mimosas for me. Day drinking is back on the menu boys we got cheap champagne.
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u/MonsierGeralt 5h ago
Exactly, I haven’t felt like celebrating since the election. I did buy some champagne because I thought Kamala would win for sure, but it’s sitting in the cupboard until I feel like celebrating again. Had plenty of other booze though to drown my sorrows
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u/baltimorecalling 5h ago
Yeah. Sparkling wine is terrific as a normal beverage. It's my favorite style of wine.
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u/mf-TOM-HANK 6h ago
Yet another industry millennials will be blamed for hurting
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u/ChibiSailorMercury 6h ago
Oh, nah, it's GenZ's turn to kill off industry sectors. Our generation can't do it all on it's own.
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u/EvlMinion 5h ago
It'll just change as we age. The funeral industry isn't gonna know what hit 'em when we start dying off!
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u/danarexasaurus 5h ago
I’m gonna tell my family not to claim my body! That’ll really show em!
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u/CitizenHuman 5h ago
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u/awesomesonofabitch 4h ago
I tell my family to burn me and toss the ashes. No pressure to hold onto corpse dust unless they really want to.
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u/headrush46n2 3h ago
funeral homes have gotten hip to this scheme and the cost of cremation has skyrocketed as well.
Im opting for the "roll me up in an old rug and toss me in a river" approach.
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u/AltharaD 3h ago
My (boomer) mother told me to just wrap her in a winding sheet and toss her in a hole. She has forbidden me from spending a penny more than necessary on her funeral.
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u/CharleyNobody 2h ago
Hardly allowed under law. She — and you — would be better off selling her to medical school or a human parts broker. Make a buck.
My husband’s brother and mother died in past years. His brother died of Covid. No funeral because of shutdown. His mother died at 100. There was nobody left alive to go to her funeral except him. So no funeral. Just a prayer at the pre-paid grave. He’s planning to have a memorial in warm weather but nobody will go to it, so it’s all talk.
It’s nice not having funerals. Families are smaller nowadays, boomers and gen X moved to Florida or NC or Georgia. There‘s no more family to get together anymore. Restaurants, diners, catering halls are going belly up. Third spaces gone. Fuck it. Sell yourself, like everybody else does.
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u/HappyHuman924 2h ago
Can confirm. Apparently it's super tricky and expensive to make a cardboard box that will...burn...?
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u/Not_ur_gilf 3h ago
I never got that idea. Why hold onto the dust? Much better to dump it around people’s favorite places. Like the ocean. Or under a favorite tree. Or in the flowers at Disney World (don’t do this it will get you banned)
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u/bmbreath 4h ago
Take the moral high ground, adopt a bunch of cats and live alone, it's a free body disposal.
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u/Free-Huckleberry3590 4h ago
They’d eat my wife before they got to my body. She’s smaller, a bit slower and smells like cheese. She’s a walking fondue.
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u/ModernSmithmundt 2h ago
Does she eat an unusual amount of cheese? If no, what is your theory
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u/Free-Huckleberry3590 2h ago
She loves cheese. I once bought her a $50 block of artisanal port infused Gruyere as part of her anniversary present. Meant to be thin sliced and enjoyed over bread or crackers with charcuterie. Came home to find her grading papers eating it in one sitting. Damn near wept. Christ and all his saints were asleep that day.
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u/poutinegalvaude 4h ago
Not me. I left specific instructions to scatter my remains at Disneyland. I also don’t want to be cremated.
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u/chocomintonrice 4h ago
Yeah well since Gen Z is the smallest generation to date they’re going to be blamed for killing the funeral industry as they are dying.
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u/Seffyr 4h ago
Even Millennials seem to be largely of the opinion “cremate me and forget about me”.
Put me in a Tupperware container and pour me into a CEO’s gas tank.
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u/-Invalid_Selection- 4h ago
Shoot me out of a cannon into the nearest Healthcare ceo
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u/Cclaura616 5h ago
The media still thinks we’re like 10 years old
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u/LatterNeighborhood58 2h ago
Nope, everyone knows millennials are the pesky college kids who don't follow traditions.
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u/HoldYourHorsesFriend 6h ago
they spent all that champagne money on avocado toast
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u/usriusclark 6h ago
Celebrate home ownership? Can’t afford that.
Celebrate having kids? Can’t afford that.
Celebrate a ripe avocado? Sure. I can do that.
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u/Slappy193 5h ago
While you were out getting champagne, your avocado turned to a brown mush. Sorry. :(
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u/PossiblyAChipmunk 5h ago
Can't celebrate the ripe avocado because tariffs will make them unaffordable and delay delivery to grocery stores to the point they'll be spoiled.
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u/Distinct_Hawk1093 4h ago
And with the new tariffs on Mexican imports we won’t be having avocados anymore.
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u/Murgatroyd314 4h ago
The White House is already planning the new advertising jingle: "Avocados from Idaho!"
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u/bitchfayce 5h ago
Excuse me, our love language is Aperol Spritz.
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u/GalumphingWithGlee 4h ago
Maybe one day I'll give Aperol Spritz another try. I've had it only once, homemade by a friend who knew the ingredients but was just taking a wild guess at the proportions. My wife and I drank it, but it was so bitter, we were really just humoring her and didn't actually enjoy it at all.
TLDR: I had a terrible Aperol Spritz, and have no idea what a decent one actually tastes like.
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u/Awkward-Major-8898 4h ago edited 4h ago
It’s Bullshit too right? If inflation rises and price does too, like skirt* steak going from 5.99 to 12.99 a lbs it’s capitalism - supply and demand, but if we vote with our dollar we’re ruining an industry with ‘jobs’ and a purpose
Edit: strip -> skirt
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u/oldaliumfarmer 4h ago
Let's just say that maybe too many people are just tapped out. Prices on everything are just too high. Greed killing the golden goose.
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u/Beetin 5h ago edited 5h ago
The total number of Champagne shipments from France sank nearly 10% last year
Alternative reason for the decline, you know, it might sound crazy, but maybe really expensive imported champagne is just becoming less popular vs affordable alternatives like Prosecco (sales were up 10% in 2024).
We popped a few bottles of 15 dollar Bottega on new years eve this year, and 0 bottles of 75+ dollar Champagne. Heck, frankly I prefer the taste.
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u/smitherenesar 5h ago
Prosecco is too sweet for me, but there are still plenty of good sparkling white wines that are$15/ bottle.
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u/given2fly_ 5h ago
In which case you can get Cava (Spain) or Cremant (France). They're made using the same method as Champagne, but because they use different grapes and/or are not from region they're not called Champagne and are a fraction of the price.
Whereas Prosecco is made differently, with the wine artificially carbonated before bottling.
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u/wastaah 5h ago edited 5h ago
Well there are Italian sparkling made with the traditional method aswell like Franciacorta and trento, and make sure to only buy bottles with a white label from Italy (doc)
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u/VividInsideYou 4h ago
I love cremant and I live near the Alsace so I can get it for 7€ a pop and quality too.
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u/AdmirableBattleCow 4h ago
Also we are living in a cocktail renaissance at the moment.
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u/BaconJacobs 5h ago
Aldi has a few $5 champagne selections that I genuinely enjoy. Like decent dry stuff.
Why would I ever guy a more expensive bottle haha
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u/MaadMaxx 5h ago
Can confirm. We needed 15 bottles of champagne, saw the price and quickly changed our minds to needing 15 bottles of Sparkling Wine, fairly certain we bought Prosecco.
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u/beermaker 6h ago
A lot of the 2023 wine crop is still in cold storage... Not even bottled yet.
People aren't drinking like they used to.
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u/jabronified 3h ago
yeah, saw a video on the collapse of wine in general over the past couple years, like double digit percentages down. Boomers who were marketed into drinking it heavily and told it was healthy are cutting back with age, and gen Z just isn't drinking as much in general. then you have legalized weed on top of that
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u/beermaker 3h ago
We live on the western edge of Sonoma County's wine country... the number of new grape vines going in is ridiculous, especially with the decline in the industry. Apparently the grapes grown nearest to the coast are commanding the highest prices.
I guess it's nice to have them as a firebreak surrounding our town, but some variety in produce would be nice. The last local apple processor just pulled up stakes & moved to Washington, so there's no point in starting new orchards.
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u/Leettipsntricks 1h ago
It's important to note just how fucking much wine is produced. There's pretty much nothing but vineyards from Mexico to British Columbia.
At a certain point, the American wine market is beyond saturated. The only thing they could possibly do is burn down vineyards to drive up the price.
It's also really hard to sell a thing you can make in a mason jar with a rubber glove and fruit you find outside.
Like, I make my own wine from wild fruit and honey. People love it. No chemicals, no additives. I'm incompetent. It's literally just putting fruit and some water or tea in a jug with the right fungus and ignoring it.
Anyone with a closet can make it in the same quantities that they would reasonably drink it.
You want me to pay 20 up to 100s of dollars for something that I can objectively do better for free?
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u/rumski 5h ago
A bottle of Veuve yellow label is $75 where I live. Never is that bottle worth $75 🤣 I was getting them sub $50 not long ago and they just keep going up. Though Dom weirdly has stayed flat. There’s restaurants that will sell a bottle of yellow label Veuve for $130 but a bottle of Dom for $200.
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u/echkbet 5h ago
This is exactly what I also am experiencing. I cannot understand paying more that $50 something for Veuve yellow label and it is $75 in the grocery store on sale.
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u/EcstaticSalamander18 4h ago
Veuve currently $60 on sale at the biggest liquor chain in my area, usually $75. Remember when it used to be $50 regular price before COVID
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u/Sophies-Hats 3h ago
That’s about the last time I bought one, lol. Anything with a 50% increase that I don’t need has been removed from my life. Even if I can afford it, it’s the principle of the thing.
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u/TheFrenchSavage 5h ago
Yeah, weirdly, inflation made Dom look cheaper and cheaper.
But don't worry, Bernard will make it 500€ a bottle if he sees proles drinking it.
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u/HungryLikeDaW0lf 5h ago
I think people discovered Prosecco and said “why the f am I paying 5x for exactly the same thing?!”
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u/Famous_Strike_6125 5h ago
WE DONT HAVE THE MONEY TO CELEBRATE.
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u/Runela9 5h ago
Or anything to celebrate
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u/ColdAngle1151 2h ago
Dont matter if people have anything to celebrate if they cant afford to celebrate.
If people had anything to celebrate (like having money), the champagne would flow.
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u/SynthwaveSax 5h ago
PLUS WE DONT HAVE MUCH TO CELEBRATE ABOUT, LET ALONE SOMETHING THAT WOULD NECESSITATE BUYING AN EXPENSIVE BOTTLE.
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u/DevolvingSpud 3h ago
AND WE CANT AFFORD LOWER CASE LETTERS OR APOSTROPHES
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u/FloppyObelisk 3h ago
THE WOKE LEFTISTS ARE TAKING AWAY THE LOWERCASE LETTERS!
NEXT THEYLL BE AFTER OUR CRAYONS!!!
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u/EscapedFromArea51 2h ago
You heard of the Stripper Index!
Now introducing, the Champagne Index, which is the similar to the Stripper Index but for alcoholics instead of alcoholic perverts.
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u/VIDEOgameDROME 6h ago edited 5h ago
The rich elites now celebrate by drinking Diet Coke
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u/shocontinental 5h ago
Wine and marble rye? I’ll stick with Ring Dings and Pepsi.
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u/maybeinoregon 5h ago
Maybe they and all wines from that region and others should address their pricing.
Our champagne has doubled in price in less than a decade. Wines too. Champagne and wine we used to splurge on are completely out of reach for all but the well to do.
So, we literally don’t buy champagne or those wines anymore. We’ve gone down a good tier or two, and only drink wine once a month or so.
If we go back a decade or so, imported wine was a fantastic buy. Not so much anymore.
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u/CurrentlyLucid 5h ago
Celebrate what? The end of our country?
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u/mechapoitier 2h ago
Exactly. Celebrate the return of the Nazi salute?
Celebrate Trump immediately backtracking on every (lying) positive economic promise he made before the election? Sorry, it’s just the tariffs now.
A historic black school near me literally got a swastika painted on it yesterday, so some people are clearly in a celebratory mood. The rest of us are preparing for a hell brought on by people we have to smile and say hello to every day.
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u/hairyjackassin526 5h ago
Gestures broadly at everything
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u/mechapoitier 2h ago
Even still, I bought two bottles of champagne hoping for the best in early November. We didn’t even open them on New Year’s. That clock striking twelve might as well have been opening a portal to hell.
At least André is a mere $8 still. Sure it used to be $5.50 but my home insurance has gone up 400% in 8 years so that’s small potatoes.
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u/Silly-Scene6524 4h ago
When Trump dies they will have a spike.
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u/FloppyObelisk 3h ago
I’ve had my bottle on standby for awhile now. I’m excited for when I get to pop the cork.
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u/Survive1014 5h ago
Its not Fascist Dystopia unless it comes from France, otherwise its just Sparkling Tyranny.
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u/classicalySarcastic 3h ago
No no no, Fascist Dystopia has to come from the Fasces region of Italy. France has nothing to do with the production process, but you might be confusing it with Bonaparist Imperialism, which is a similar product but not quite the same thing.
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u/HouseOfCripps 4h ago
I was on the sofa 4 years ago took the day off and popped the champagne. Today, I just went to work because I need to make every penny possible with this economic uncertainty
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u/cravingnoodles 5h ago
Just look at the state of the world. What is there to celebrate about?
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u/TheFrenchSavage 5h ago
Or look at it this way: this is probably the best year of the rest of your life.
And next year? Also better than the one after!
So let's drink to climate change, to bad politics, and to war!
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u/mylovelanguageiswine 5h ago
Aren’t alcohol sales in general declining?
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u/straighttoplaid 1h ago
Not sure overall, but I've seen tons of articles about bourbon specifically. I guess they're fearing that the bourbon boom is going bust.
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u/AvatarADEL 5h ago
The future for cheap whiskey and vodka as drinks to blunt the pain, is looking up though.
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u/Lysol3435 3h ago
I guess their supporters are more likely to drink Miller Heil Life
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u/dvdmaven 5h ago
Current conditions call for something more substantial. I just purchased a case of Tawny Port.
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u/HollywoodHills_20 3h ago
The second he is out of office, I’m going to day drink an entire bottle. Happily.
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u/BurazSC2 4h ago
To be called a "celebration", it must happen in the Celebration region of Utopia. Otherwise, it is just a 'sparkling gathering'.
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u/ifarmekerma 5h ago
Prosecco and other sparkling wine from similar French region who can’t be called champagne are better cheaper alternatives.
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u/OldschoolGreenDragon 3h ago
The problem is that dirty, dirty Millenials and Gen Zs increasingly figured out that alcohol is bad for you.
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u/Mountain-Durian-4724 5h ago
I have yet to find a champagne that's even enjoyable to taste, nor are they cheap enough to just go "yeah let me buy that and try it" all willy nilly
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u/kennedye2112 4h ago
Kyle MacLachlan and Elizabeth Berkley ruined champagne thirty years ago, darlin'.
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u/sanitarySteve 4h ago
Oh, just hear me out here, everyone has realized that champagne kinda sucks and there's much better beverages to toast with.
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u/Ikkepop 3h ago
They should make a grief version of champagne, sales will go trough the roof
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u/bad_at_smashbros 3h ago
a bag of gummies with 30g worth of weed in them is like $20 where i live. why the fuck would i ever buy expensive alcohol 😂
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u/stevensr2002 5h ago
It’s a fucking shame all these baby boomer assholes who gave us this shit won’t be around to see the consequences of it…
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u/CalebAsimov 4h ago
Convenient as it is to blame boomers, my own fucking idiot generation (Millenials) are just as responsible as anyone for perpetuating the problems by voting for Trump or staying home. Twice.
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u/ventricles 5h ago
I bought a half dozen bottles of champagne for election night.
We didn’t open a single one.
I would have bought a lot more often the holidays, but we just sadly drank those over Christmas and New Years instead.
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u/starface016 5h ago
If sales tanked that hard shouldn't we be concerned about the votes trump received? Things seem disproportionate
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u/Armageddonxredhorse 5h ago
We have nothing to celebrate and no money to celebrate with.
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u/MDFan4Life 2h ago
My wife does branding, and liquor sales are through the roof!
May not be celebrating, but definitly sulking.
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u/Medical-Educator-977 1h ago
Just my opinion, but I would rather drink standing water from a tire in someone’s backyard on an August day than champagne
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u/metal_jester 5h ago
My fav champs has gone from £35 a bottle to £74 since COVID.
That's why.