One of the greatest marketing coups in the history of the wine trade has been the branding of Champagne. From humble beginnings as a thin white wine, it was transformed into a sparkling wine and from there became one of the great branding exercises of all time. Today that branding is so omnipresent that if we want to describe the lifestyle of the rich and spoiled, we refer to a 'champagne lifestyle'.

Champagne didn't achieve this overnight. It has taken over 100 years of advertising to turn this wine into the sine qua non of celebration. The Champagne houses successfully adopted a German method of refermenting wine by the addition of sugar, and having adopted it by the mid 1800s, christened it the methode champenoise. Having successfully usurped the method, they single-mindedly went on to persuade us through the power of advertising that the climate and the soil of the Champagne were uniquely adapted to the making of premium sparkling wine. There is some truth in this; the lime soil and cool climate ensures slow maturing grapes with a high acidity. But the image of a premium sparkling wine with unique properties is one that the Champagne growers have skilfully, and sometimes litigiously, guarded.

But this is an image that applies to all champagnes. The next step for a Champagne house is to establish its brand identity. The problem that needed addressing was that people buy champagne for other reasons than they buy claret. In Bordeaux wines are marketed by the great chateaux on the basis of their taste - but people buy champagne for its image. The taste is largely irrelevant, and in truth is often indistinguishable. I know no one who could successfully distinguish Moet from Mumm from Heidsieck in a blind tasting. Much is made by the houses of their unique 'house style' achieved through careful blending, yet the iffy practice of buying sur latte still remains legal. This happens when Champagne houses run out of stock, buy ready-made champagne from elsewhere and then put their own label on it. On the subject of this scandal Charles Tovey wrote in 1881, 'How long will such a system last? Surely the time will come when champagne drinkers will become wise…'

All of the heavily advertised brands are targeted at specific demographic groups, so a large part of what you pay for when you buy champagne is the cost of establishing the image. For example, in the 80s when Pommery and Lanson were taken over by the yoghurt manufacturers BSN, they carefully aimed Pommery at the 35-plus age group and Lanson at the 25-35 age group through extensive advertising. Although the big houses have pervasive advertising, you don't have to buy into the image if you don't want to. There are plenty of small producers who make quality champagne. Here are a few to try:

Marcel Pierre Champagne. Available from Superquinn at £15.99

Compte L. de Ferrande (New Cuvee). Available from Dunnes Stores at £16.99

Roland Bauchet Carte Noire. Available from O'Brien's at £16.99