Formula 1’s official champagne is, since 2025, Moët & Chandon: the brand returned to the podium with a ten-year agreement between F1 and LVMH announced on 5 February 2025, replacing Ferrari Trento (2021-2024). The podium toast in F1 dates from 1950, when Moët gave a bottle to Juan Manuel Fangio; the spraying, on the other hand, was born at the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans with Dan Gurney.
Updated in October 2026.
If you had to distil victory into a single gesture, it would probably be shaking a bottle and spraying it over the mechanics. It is a ritual that looks spontaneous, and in part it was, but today it is also one of the most valuable brand moments in sport: it comes at the peak of the emotion, in front of a global audience, at the very instant a driver lifts the trophy. Here you will find where it comes from, who has supplied it over the years, why it is worth something to a sponsor and what happens in other sports.
What champagne is used on the F1 podium today
Since 2025 it has been Moët & Chandon. The top three finishers and the winning team celebrate with its bottles, and the brand was also title partner of the 2025 Belgian Grand Prix. With Moët’s return, F1 closed the Ferrari Trento chapter, an Italian sparkling wine (not a champagne) that arrived in 2021, after Carbon and a brief return of Moët during the pandemic. The succession of suppliers, according to the accounts:
- from 1950: Moët & Chandon, with the first bottle to Fangio at the French Grand Prix at Reims;
- 2000-2015: G.H. Mumm;
- 2016-2017: Chandon, the Argentine version of the house, for a few Grands Prix;
- 2017-2019: Champagne Carbon;
- 2020: Moët & Chandon, for a brief return;
- 2021-2024: Ferrari Trento;
- from 2025: Moët & Chandon.
The sources do not agree on the exact years of Moët’s first contract (some give 1966, some 1950-1999): the substance is that for decades the F1 toast was theirs.
How the spraying began
In 1950, after the French Grand Prix at Reims-Gueux, Moët & Chandon offered a bottle to Fangio: that is where the podium toast comes from. The spraying came later and almost by accident. In 1966, at Le Mans, the cork of a bottle popped by itself; in 1967 Dan Gurney, who had won with A.J. Foyt in a Ford GT40, shook the bottle of Moët and sprayed it over Henry Ford II, Carroll Shelby and anyone around him. He told it himself: it was a spontaneous gesture, with no idea of founding a tradition.
Why it is worth something to a sponsor
Champagne on the podium is a textbook case of brand placement: the product appears at the moment of maximum emotion, in the winner’s hand, and the scene is filmed and shared around the world. For a luxury house the value lies in the association between victory and the toast: the brand does not merely stand next to the emotion, it makes it recognisable. With LVMH, moreover, the agreement is not only about the podium: the same ten-year partnership led Moët & Chandon to tie its name to an entire Grand Prix.
Anyone who wants to understand how a luxury group enters F1 can read the story of Louis Vuitton’s sponsorship in Formula 1, which belongs to the same brand universe.
Other sports, other rituals
Every sport has its own. At the Indianapolis 500 the winner drinks milk: the tradition goes back to 1936, when Louis Meyer, after his third win, asked for buttermilk and a Milk Foundation executive saw the photo in the newspaper. In American football the Gatorade shower dates from 1984, when Jim Burt of the New York Giants tipped a cooler over his coach Bill Parcells. In MotoGP the podium is celebrated with Prosecco: the Prosecco DOC Consortium has been official supplier of the celebrations since 2019. The drinks change, the mechanism stays: a collective, recognisable gesture that the brand can make its own.
The limit: alcohol and markets
The ritual has a boundary. At Grands Prix in countries where alcohol is banned (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the Emirates) F1 replaces champagne with a non-alcoholic drink. For a sponsor, the subject is not marginal: the presence of alcoholic drinks in motorsport has a history of rules and debate that we tell in alcohol advertising in F1: between sport, marketing and ethics and in Drink and Drive: why so many alcohol brands sponsor motorsport. If you are considering entering F1, the budget thresholds are in the guide to the cost of Formula 1 sponsorship.
RTR Sports Marketing has been building motorsport sponsorships since 1995.
Sources: Formula 1, Moët & Chandon returns as official champagne; Autosport, how spraying became a tradition; The Gentleman’s Journal, Moët & Chandon and F1; Falstaff, the return of Moët & Chandon; Motor Sport Magazine, Gurney and the first spray; 24 Hours of Le Mans, the spraying tradition; MotoGP.com, Prosecco DOC and MotoGP; NBC Washington, milk at the Indy 500; Wikipedia, the Gatorade shower.
Frequently asked questions
What champagne does Formula 1 use on the podium?
Since 2025 Moët & Chandon, F1’s official champagne under a ten-year agreement between F1 and LVMH. From 2021 to 2024 the supplier was Ferrari Trento.
Who started spraying champagne on the podium?
Dan Gurney, at the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans, after winning with A.J. Foyt in a Ford GT40. The F1 podium toast goes back to 1950, with a bottle of Moët offered to Fangio.
Why is champagne not sprayed at some Grands Prix?
In countries where alcohol is banned, such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the Emirates, F1 uses a non-alcoholic drink.
What do they drink on the MotoGP podium?
Prosecco: the Prosecco DOC Consortium has been official supplier of the podium celebrations since 2019.
Why is champagne on the podium a good investment for a brand?
Because the product appears at the moment of maximum emotion, in the winner’s hand, in front of a global audience: the association between victory and brand is immediate.
