Aided by a ridiculously high Australian dollar, Australians are easing their way through their current economic woes with an unprecedented level of Champagne consumption. Figures show that we imported 4.862 million bottles in 2011, which goes some way to explain why Australia is back on the Champagne proprietors’ calling list. Incidentally, our growth rate in this respect was even higher than China’s. While theirs was nearly 20%, ours was nearly one-third! Feeling better now?



