Prosecco’s profusion may have seized the market advantage, but it has done nothing to dent Champagne’s elite prestige. The wines of the region, however, have had regal associations long before the production of its “bubbly”.

European viniculture was revived after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century by no less than Charlemagne, crowned Holy Roman Emperor in St Peter’s on Christmas Day 800, who actively encouraged vine planting across the empire. But it was the crowning of his son, Louis, in 816 at Reims cathedral, where all subsequent French kings were crowned, that gave the all-important boost to the wines of Champagne, many of them produced by the great abbeys in the region, such as Epernay, founded in the seventh century.

It was the use of bottles and corks for wine storage that made the development of sparkling wine in Champagne possible. Sparkling wine is made by holding carbon dioxide in the bottle, rather than letting it escape through an airlock. The gas eventually dissolves into the wine, but when the bottle is opened it emerges in the form of bubbles.