Village With No Grapes Strikes Champagne Land Jackpot

PARIS — Envy and recrimination is spreading through the Champagne region of France where a new official survey has given another 40 villages the right to label their sparkling wine "champagne."

Delight among the winners has been matched by opprobrium from other villages who failed to gain entry to the Champagne region and win the status this accords.

Marchais-en-Brie has struck liquid gold by becoming the only village in its county to be added to the list. Local farmers have won a remarkable agricultural jackpot, with the price of their land expected to increase from less than $13,000 a hectare to more than a million.

"I am delighted that the appellation has come to our village, for the tourism it will undoubtedly bring in but above all for the landowners affected," the mayor of Marchais-en-Brie, Pierre Moroy, said. About a dozen farmers among the hamlet's 250 people — none of whom has ever grown grapes before — will now see their land increase in value more than a hundred-fold.

Mr. Moroy admitted to being slightly perplexed about his village's success. No one has grown grapes in Marchais-en-Brie for many years and the village did not formally apply to join the Champagne region. It does, however, border the Marne, where other vineyards and villages have been added to the list.