Here's a somewhat lighthearted Y2K story of sorts (lighthearted unless you are being affected by the sales slowdown in alcoholic bubbly, that is):

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Headline: Champagne left with millennium hangover

Source: Times of London, MONDAY NOVEMBER 06 2000

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,30743,00.html

FROM ADAM SAGE IN EPERNAY

A setting sun kissed the Champagne vineyards of eastern France, lending splendour to an historic scene.

Behind the autumnal calm, the region is in ferment, a victim of the millennium effect that never happened.

The champagne producers who thought sales would rise like a cork from one of their bottles were badly mistaken. Supermarkets throughout the world are still trying to get rid of the cases left in their warehouses last December B and are refusing to order more.

As a result, exports to Britain and elsewhere are in sharp decline this year, according to figures released last week by the producersB body, the ComitC) Interprofessionel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC).

So is the price of bubbly, and so, too, is the stock market valuation of the great champagne houses, such as Laurent-Perrier, which has slumped by 27.7 per cent during 2000. It is a crisis like no other in the 300 years since dom Pierre PC)rignon, a Benedictine monk, began making the drink of kings.

BThere were stories last year of a champagne drought, prompting the global retail trade to buy more and more in the run up to the millennium,B said Daniel Lorson, communicationsB director at the CIVC, as he sat in a spacious office overlooking the church spire in Epernay, the heart of la Champagne.

BThey thought people would be diving naked into champagne baths. But in the end, there were no orgies. Instead, people tended to stay quietly at home, perhaps out of fear of Nostradamus, perhaps for other reasons. We know now for sure that the millennium was vastly over-hyped. The bubble has burst.B

This time last year, the industry was predicting a 15 to 20 per cent increase in sales over the festive season. It dispatched a record 327 million bottles. There was an increase, but only of an insignificant 2 per cent, leaving up to 40 million bottles unsold.

The consequences are dramatic for one of FranceBs wealthiest regions. BOrders over the first eight months of this year were down by 45 million bottles compared with the same period last year,B M Lorson said. BIf this continues for much longer, itBs going to get really worrying. The biggest names will be OK but I am pessimistic for the future of certain producers.B

Exports to Britain had fallen by 48 per cent as supermarkets such as SainsburyBs slashed the price of cheap champagnes to clear stocks, he said. In France Carrefour last week launched a Bbuy one, get one freeB offer on Castellane champagne.

According to M Lorson, the fault lies with the media for creating millennium hype, and the retailers who failed to see through it.

Yet producers did their best to cash in. Lanson put a Fr3,200 price tag on its vintage, which was covered in mesh by Paco Rabane.

It was a euphoric time. In la Champagne today, however, the mood has gone flat.

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-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), November 06, 2000