[ Business World...]

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Sep 28, 1999

Yes, we have enough of the bubbly

PARIS (AP) -- Yes, there will be enough champagne to help close out the end of the 20th century and ring in the millennium. No, prices won't go through the roof before the party.

The champagne industry has been preparing for the century's last bash for four years. The Interprofessional Committee of Champagne Wine, which joins producers and buyers, has promised that there would be enough bubbles for all despite the increased demand. Fears of a shortage, however, are logical. There are less than 75,000 acres of chardonnay, pinot noir or meuniers grapes -- used to make champagne - - in the Champagne region around Reims, 90 miles east of Paris. That acreage yields but 5 percent of all French wines and just 15 percent of all effervescent wines.

Champagne jealously guards its name, and sparkling wines made elsewhere are not allowed to wear the champagne label.

Producers began gearing up for this New Year's in 1995, when the Champagne region began producing 15 to 20 million bottles more annually to meet the expected increased demand. Buyers and producers struck a four-year deal in 1996 to control prices, and increases are expected to be limited. Low-end champagne has been marked up recently from $8 to $11, considered its correct price, and minimal increases are expected on high-end champagne.

Champagne sales reached a record 290 million bottles in 1998 -- the year France won the World Cup soccer championships.

Double latte and a loan, please

ROSEBURG, Ore. (NYT) -- Call South Umpqua Bank a store or a computer cafe, says Raymond P. Davis, but please do not call it a bank. Davis, chief executive of South Umpqua, based in Roseburg, Ore., said he doesn't want his bank's 15 branches to be "prisons" like most banks; he wants his customers to kick back and relax. To that end, South Umpqua offers fresh-brewed coffee, sofas and chairs, background music, a rack of magazines and newspapers, a big-screen TV (usually tuned to a financial news channel) and computer terminals for trading stocks over the Internet. There is also gadgetry that lets customers learn about the bank's offerings or even buy postage stamps.

"We're retailers," Davis said. "We're a store where you buy things, only we sell bank products and services, not Levis."

The bank-cum-cafe idea came from Charlene Stern, president of Stern Marketing Group in Berkeley, Calif., who calls most banks shortsighted for sending off their customers to automated teller machines and discouraging visits to branches. Those banks reduce costs but lose an opportunity to cross-sell, she said. Davis said the come-in-and-browse approach was a big reason that South Umpqua's earnings have been growing 20 percent annually. Its customers use an average of 2.5 of the bank's products -- checking accounts, personal loans and so on -- compared with 1.2 for average American bank customer, he said.

Locals in Roseburg, a logging town not yet blessed with a Starbucks outlet, seem to like the kaffeeklatsch atmosphere. Joy Marie Yeo, a patient advocate at a local hospital, said that the last time she was in the bank, she schmoozed over coffee with her dentist and his wife. While there, she made a mental note of the automated loan machine in the bank. "I've got a daughter who may be going to medical school," she said.

Church crosses paths with Ma Bell

ALEXANDRIA. Va. (AP) -- A financially struggling church is considering a deal with Ma Bell: Allow AT&T to build a 130-foot-tall cross with a cellular phone tower concealed inside and First Christian Church will get $18,000 a year. "This could be a godsend, from our perspective," said the Rev.Tim Mabbott, the church pastor. The money would represent almost 10 percent of the church's annual budget and help put the church back on solid footing.

But for the church's neighbors, the proposed cross is a troubling sign of things to come. "We do not have anything against the church," said Michael Cassidy, who lives directly behind First Christian. "The church has been wonderful to this neighborhood. We believe in the church, but we don't believe in the encroachment of AT&T in a residential neighborhood."

AT&T usually places cell phone equipment on existing buildings, but about 15 percent of the time that isn't possible, said Alexa E. Graf, a company spokeswoman. The company initially approached Alexandria's First Baptist Church, she said, but the Baptists were not interested in hiding the equipment in their steeple.

"We are debating what we are going to do," Graf said. "If the community opposition stays as strong as it is right now, we are going to have to rethink our other options."

That is not what Mabbott wants to hear. Three years ago, First Christian was on the verge of closing its doors. The church was running an annual deficit and the aging congregation considered selling its land to a neighboring retirement home. "This is a very valuable piece of property and there was some talk of selling it to raise money and moving out to an area with more young children and families," Mabbott said. "But we decided to give it another try."