PROFILE - MIREILLE GUILLANO: Salut to you.

Mireille Guiliano tells Ruth Mortimer how she got the Veuve Clicquot brand to number two in the US cmahmpagne market and warns it won't be stopping there

RM: You famously built the Veuve Clicquot brand in the US up from virtually nothing to 25% market share. How did you do it?

MG: Before I worked for Veuve Clicquot, I worked for a public relations firm for the champagne industry, representing all the brands. When I took the job, my friends at different champagne houses said "Are you crazy? You're never going to make it. It's bound to fail. You have to have a big staff and big budget and no-one has ever heard of it."

I had written a five-year marketing plan and to have any kind of awareness in the US, research showed that you needed five per cent of the market. We had 0.01%. No other champagne brand had anything like that - there was only Mont, which was the leader.

But I thought: what is the worst thing that can happen? I said, "Ok, maybe these …