At £670, the world's most expensive bottle of champagne

France's reputation for luxury fizzed yesterday with the news that the French wines and spirits group Pernod Ricard was to make the world's most expensive champagne.

A bottle of Perrier Jouet's Belle Epoque will cost €1,000 (£670), more than 50 times dearer than the cheapest champagne available in supermarkets.

Pernod's chairman Patrick Ricard announced the product in answer to a shareholder's question at the annual meeting about the company's strategy for competing with luxury groups such as LVMH, which owns Krug and Moët et Chandon. He added: "We won't do many cases and won't be offering it here."

M. Ricard appeared to be announcing Pernod's intent to shake up the multibillion-pound champagne business, which is dominated by long-established players.

The conglomerate has only been making champagne for a year after taking control of the Mumm and Perrier Jouet brands following the £7bn takeover of the British drinks giant Allied Domecq in August 2005. A spokeswoman for Pernod Ricard, which makes Beefeater gin, Malibu and Jacob's Creek, said there would be demand for such a costly bubbly. "There is a global trend to develop more and more premium and ultra-premium brands," she said.

Global champagne sales have performed well year after year for France against a slump in still wines that has left New World countries taking ever larger shares of the world market.

Yesterday, however, there was uncertainty among experts about how much value drinkers would derive from quaffing a £670 bottle of sparkling wine, whatever its credentials. Although vintage champagnes sell for up to £1,000, new champagne bottles barely clink past the £200 barrier.

Ronan Sayburn, head of wine at Gordon Ramsay's restaurants in London, recalled that makers of armagnac and cognac demanded £1,800 a bottle for centuries-old blends.

He was unsure that the same trick would work for champagne. "I am sure they will have buyers for it because people have money to spend and they want exclusivity," he said. "But there is a trade-off point where the price and the actual flavour of the wine begin to split. When you are paying more than £400 to £500 for a wine it is not going to get any better in flavour. What you are getting after that is exclusivity, rarity."

Asked whether a £670 champagne could ever be worth the price, another expert, Adam Lechmere, editor of Decanter.com, said: "It's like asking whether Wayne Rooney's wages are justified ... It depends what you think you are buying.

"If you are trying to impress someone and you are into conspicuous consumption, then £700 is not a lot of money." He noted, however, that differences in taste between champagnes tended to become harder to detect after the £40 level.