The candidacy has been six years in the making and producers will have to wait until July 2014 to hear the decision.
The volume of fake champagne sold on the market is said to equal the stock of the real French product. That’s 330 million bottles, according to Jean-Luc Barbier, the director of the Interprofessional Committee of Champagne Wine (CIVC).
The competition is particularly unfair since fake bubbly is produced without respecting any of the traditional local rules of Champagne. Fakes rarely cost more than seven Euros, while an authentic Champagne bottle costs between 18 and 200 Euros, and more for exceptional vintages.
Champagne is not the first wine-producing region seeking the protection of the UNESCO classification. Five sites are already registered in the World Heritage List: Saint-Emilion, France, the Upper Douro Valley, Portugal, Tokaj Coast, Hungary, Lavaux, Switzerland and Pico Island, Azores.