Ja Rule’s “Clap Back” blares inside club H20 in Charlotte, where Jolae Smith sips champagne near the dance floor.
Smith, 22, takes several sips before noticing her champagne bottle has an orange label. She looks confused. The bottle, given to her by a guy in the club, clearly is not her favorite champagne, which has a white or black label. She turns to her friend. “This ain’t even Moet,” she says.
They place their unfinished glasses on a table next to the half-full bottle and walk away. The champagne, Veuve Clicquot, which costs about $100 a bottle in clubs, isn’t exactly tap water.
The two women are part of the growing number of young African-Americans who drink champagne, a symbol of status among hip-hop celebrities.
If Smith and her friend are any indication, though, these new champagne drinkers know brands, not grapes.
The biggest stars, from Jay-Z to the late Notorious B.I.G., rap about Cristal, Moet & Chandon and Dom Perignon. No one gives shout-outs to Veuve Clicquot yet. But when they do, it will be the next hot drink among impressionable fans who flock from one brand to the next Courvoisier, Burberry, Mercedes as they imitate their favorite rappers.
Moet is a staple in clubs, but Cristal is the most popular, because only a limited number of bottles are released each year. Both have been mentioned in top hip-hop songs for more than a decade.
Cristal became the hip-hop champagne of choice, because it was perceived to be the most expensive, said Lucian James, who created American Brandstand, which tracks brand mentions in music.
Aspiring Atlanta rapper Arma G. exemplifies this attitude. At H20, he and his entourage pose for photographs and parade around with bottles of Moet. He actually drinks Hennessey and Hypnotiq, two other popular beverages touted by celebrities. “This right here was three or four years ago,” he says, holding up the Moet. “We’re on to Cristal, Louis XIII.”
The changing demographic of champagne drinkers from older white male baby boomers to young African-Americans has gone largely unnoticed by the wine industry. The reason for this is that the industry focuses its marketing on people who already drink wine. The younger, hipper champagne drinkers aren’t necessarily regular wine consumers. They’re not reaching out to emerging markets, said Alisa Joseph, vice president of advertiser marketing services for Scarborough, in New York. The industry also ignores women and Hispanics, said wine consultant John Stallcup of Napa, Calif.
Bubbling over
Champagne and sparkling-wine sales among African-Americans have been increasing quietly for nearly a decade. In 2002, more than 20 percent of African-American wine consumers drank champagne and sparkling wine, up from 16.2 percent in 1994, according to a survey by Adams Beverage Group. Another survey by Scarborough Research found that wine consumers who had been to an R&B/hip-hop concert during the past year were more than twice as likely to have bought champagne or sparkling wine during the past three months.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Joe Knowles (jknowles@tribune.com)
