THE MILLENNIUM champagne hype has already begun and continues to gather momentum. Media stories, no doubt generated by French and other sparkling wine makers, suggest that due to celebratory demand there will be a worldwide bubbly shortage on New Year's eve, December 31, 1999.

Millennium labels abound, special Y2K magnums have been produced in quantity and fizz production lines have geared up a notch. Champagne marketers are gleefully and greedily anticipating the greatest one-off bubbly sale since Dom Perignon was a trainee cellar hand.

Of course it's just another PR beat-up. Even if the occasion is seeing out the second millennium and ushering in the third, who could believe that consumption of champers on one night of the year would seriously deplete global supplies? After all, how much bubbly can a thirsty person drink at a sitting? A bottle? A bottle and a half?

Well, there is still ample sparkling wine around and there is likely to be shiploads of it available until later in the year, though inevitably, buying hysteria will occur.

And in fact, as this millennium doesn't actually finish until next year, December 31, 2000, we can confidently predict another year of marketing by the champenoise so that we can again whoop it up for the passing of the REAL millennium. The moral of this story? Buy your Millennium I and II supplies now and avoid the rush.

© Martin Field