TY - JOUR AB - Purpose Subsequent to the First World War, the French Government regulated the Champagne industry, and locked the status of protected (and excluded) grapes into the new Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée system, forever altering the incentives and output of wine producers. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach As a result, some indigenous varietals have disappeared entirely from the region – and a handful remain only in the vineyards and bottles of a few bold entrepreneurs, constituting less than 1 percent of Champagne production.Findings The authors assess several traditional explanations (from taste and preferences to agricultural resilience)-and dismiss them as unconvincing. Instead, the authors adopt a public choice framework of regulatory capture to explain the puzzle of thwarted entrepreneurship and consumer choice.Originality/value This paper is original. VL - 7 IS - 1 SN - 2045-2101 DO - 10.1108/JEPP-D-17-00019 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/JEPP-D-17-00019 AU - Haight Colleen E. AU - Wenzel Nikolai G. PY - 2018 Y1 - 2018/01/01 TI - Domaine Pas de Choix: government intervention in the Champagne market T2 - Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy PB - Emerald Publishing Limited SP - 51 EP - 61 Y2 - 2024/03/29 ER -