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Getting a kick out of Guildford

Winemaker Victor Lanson has ditched his native France for Surrey in a bid to bring champagne to the masses, writes Ross Davies

What's in a name? Everything - if you're in the luxury goods business, like champagne's Victor Lanson. The ebullient Mr Lanson operates not from champagne's holy cities of Ay, Epernay or Reims , but from ungrapey Guildford . And there - as they say - hangs a tale.

"I couldn't operate in France ," says the Reims-born Mr Lanson, who is 37. "The bureaucracy and the banks there are united in getting in the way of any entrepreneur starting up a business."

He bears the name of one of champagne's great houses, a seventh-generation member of the family which began producing champagne under the Lanson name in 1827, although the company goes back even further than that. By the end of the 19th century, the Lansons had built up such a good name in Britain that they were the first champagne supplier to the Royal family.

By the end of the 20th, however, any chances that Mr Lanson might have had of rising through the ranks of champagne's royalty had gone well and truly flat. When he was 12, the family sold out. The champagne of that name is now in the hands of its third non-family owner, an own-label champagne supplier called Marne et Champagne .

Proud tradition: Lanson is reviving the family name

After a false start selling Peugeots and Jaguars in France , Mr Lanson felt champagne beckon. "A bottle of champagne is a luxury, but one that costs £20, not £20,000 or more, like a car," he says. "I'd love to develop and build my own car, but that's some way off."

Having missed the opportunity to learn about champagne from the inside, Mr Lanson did the next best thing and put in a year at a champagne school in Avize. "Then I asked my cousin at Laurent Perrier, Bernard de Nonancourt, for a job, and he gave me a three month trial at their London office, and I stayed for four years. Next, I set up the UK agency for another champagne, but they weren't all that ambitious, and I am."

Champagne Victor is a mid-price brand and is made up of a blend of Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes, which he and Susan, his English wife of 13 years, have made to their specification by a supplier in Reims , Alliance Champagne . The Brut sells for £16.99 in Unwins wine stores and Sainsbury's supermarkets, the Rosé for £19.99 and vintage at £21.99.

Mr Lanson is busily promoting Champagne Victor as the bubbly of choice in the sports world, where friends and friends-of-friends offer him free or bargain-rate sponsorship opportunities. "Victor", after all, is a word that hits the spot in sport. Magnums of Champagne Victor will be given to this year's winners of the Rothmans' snooker championships on BBC TV, and Victor sponsors MG racing driver Anthony Reid.

If it all sounds terribly glamorous, there's nothing silver-spoon about Champagne Victor. The company has been in business for 18 months, and sold 86,000 bottles in its first full year. "Many established brands did not accomplish sales like ours during a much longer period in the UK market,"Mr Lanson claims.

"We're selling the brand as a young, non-dressy, sporty champagne, a good-time drink. We don't pretend to be a Grande Marque, which we're not. But people who can afford champagnes much more expensive than ours will drink Champagne Victor as well."

If they down it in sufficient quantities, Mr Lanson reckons the business will be in the black two years from now. And if not? "I have no old family money," he says. "The generation before me had 11 children, and France 's Napoleonic inheritance laws made sure that nothing was left for me!"

He and Susan raised the start-up money in part by remortgaging the house and taking their three children, aged four to nine , out of private schools. "Lloyds TSB have also been very encouraging and supportive - much more so than would be the case in France ,"Mr Lanson says.

His suppliers, Alliance Champagne , have been helpful all along. For the time being, the Guildford house serves as the corporate HQ for Champagne Victor, its two salesmen Roger Horsfall and Pascal Harfau, the accountant Carole North and office manager/shipping manager Susan Street .

What does the wider Lanson family think about one of their members once again starting a champagne business? "I have over 70 cousins, you know, and I don't phone them every day, but the ones I have spoken to think it's a bit strange, a bit funny, but they rather like the idea."

And the immediate family? "They love it. Pierre my father, is a former managing director, and he and my mother, Helénè, don't live in the past. They've moved out of champagne as a business and a region, and now live in Angers .

"My father was a bit sceptical about Champagne Victor at first because he knew how much it would cost and how much effort it would take, but he's more relaxed now he can see we're growing fast and the quality is still there."

Victor Lanson is betting the house in Guildford on the British rather liking champagne, too. "A lot of people in England still haven't drunk champagne, and I think they'd like to drink Champagne Victor because it's a fun, approachable and delicious drink!"

What name will be on the recording? "I'm changing my name soon to Victor Victor on business cards, and maybe legally after that."