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There’s A Serious Champagne Shortage Coming And We Should All Be Very Concerned

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Popping champagne at birthdays, graduations, and frat parties is almost required. It makes for a good time and a great Instagram picture, but we’re going to have to let those likes go in the wake of this recent tragedy.

Winemakers say that there’s going to be a lot less champagne going out this year and into the next. Some winemakers lost 70 percent of their potential harvest due to late frosts during bud break on the vines. Not only that, but there were also hail storms and a mildew epidemic later on in the season, causing the Champagne region of France to only yield 2,500 to 3,000 kg per 100 acres instead of their usual 10,700 kg per 100 acres.

Decanter reports that 2016 has been one of the lowest yielding Champagne seasons since the 1980s and this growing season is the most complicated Champagne has known since the very difficult season of 1956.

Honestly, I blame us for this devasting news. We’re the ones popping champagne bottles at every somewhat fancy occasion we attend. Formals, birthday parties, bid day, you name it, we sprayed gallons upon gallons of champagne at it. How many bottles of champagne have you wasted since coming to college? Five? Ten? The limit does not exist? Shame on you. Shame on us.

We should all be very disappointed in ourselves. We need to make a change. Instead of spraying something so valuable and delicious like champagne, why don’t we spray something else, like Moscato? It’s pink, so that’s cute, and we probably shouldn’t be drinking Moscato anyway — too much sugar makes for a massive hangover the next morning.

Not all is lost, though. Most winemakers have a reserve just in case something like this happens, and unfortunately for them, they’re going to have to go through a lot of their reserves to make up for this year’s subpar harvest.

In preparation for this shortage, I would run to your nearest liquor store and snatch up all the champagne bottles you can find, because I have a feeling that in the next few months, champagne prices are gonna shoot through the roof.

[via Decanter]

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Cristina Montemayor

Cristina is a Grandex Writer and Content Manager. She was an intern for over two years before she graduated a semester early to write about college full time, which makes absolutely no sense. She regretfully considers herself a Carrie, but is first and foremost a Rory. She tends to draw strong reactions from people. They are occasionally positive. You can find her in a bar as you're bending down to tie your shoes, drinking Dos XX and drunk crying to Elton John. Email her: [email protected] (not .com).

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