Under EU law champagne can only be produced in the wine region of France known as Champagne. However, a friend of mine who works as a sommelier claimed that it is possible to produce legal champagne in Russia because of an obscure law enacted around the time Napoleon invaded. Is there any truth to this claim?
(Apparently there is such a thing as Soviet Champagne but no mention as to its legal status: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovetskoye_Shampanskoye)
This isn't particularly historical a question, because the current distinction is based primarily on modern laws.
Champagne is a sparkling wine, produced in the Champagne region of France (bear with me). Because of its prestige, it has become used as a genericised term for all sparkling wine, including those made outside of the Champagne region; examples would include Italian prosecco and Spanish cava. To act against this, champagne is an AOC (appellation d'origine contrôlée), meaning that it's a legally controlled brand and nothing else may be sold labeled as champagne unless it comes from the Champagne region within the EU—for instance, other French sparkling wines, even if they use the same technique, are marketed as crémants.
This designation does not apply outside the EU unless a country decides to legally enforce it themselves; a sparkling wine in the USSR could potentially, then, be marketed as champagne—but it's only a matter of the name.
Your sommelier friend is potentially very confused.
The other issue is that EU law isn't applicable to the Russian Commonwealth, so the Russians don't need to adhere to it anyway.
It isn't sold as a champagne inside of the European Union.
