Champagne sales bubbling in Australia

New figures from France’s Champagne Bureau show Australia imported 4.862 million bottles in 2011, an increase of almost a third, helped by the soaring Australian dollar. That made us the 8th largest import market in the world for a beverage usually imbibed at celebrations. And it’s not just Australians who are opening their wallets for the French drop, with sales of Champagne worldwide rising as much as 7 per cent in value. Volume topped 323 million bottles last year, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.