Business Notes

The French have a word for it: une catastrophe! Exports of champagne, France's ) most beloved beverage, are dropping with the swiftness of a guillotine blade. Overseas shipments of bubbly fell to 12.2 million bottles during the first three months of 1991, a 28% drop from last year's first quarter. Just across the Channel, where British imbibers usually constitute the largest foreign market, imports dropped by half.

Contributing to the sudden slaking of worldwide thirst: a rush by wine dealers to stockpile champagne before Jan. 1 price increases, coinciding with a drop in demand triggered by the gulf crisis and recessions in the U.S. and Britain. But longer-term forces may also be bursting the champagne bubble. Explains an official of the General Union of Wine Growers of Champagne: "In some countries you can see a trend toward health consciousness. This current has been seen in the U.S., which views champagne as both an alcoholic drink and a relatively high-calorie drink." What? Champagne unhealthy? The French have a word for this as well. It can't be printed here.