Champagne sales have gone flat due to falling orders from business customers, Majestic Wine has said.

The downturn was reflected in half-year figures from the wine warehouse group, which reported a 25 per cent fall in pre-tax profits to £5.6 million.

Like-for-like sales were down 2.1 per cent, but this accelerated to a 4.7 per cent drop in the five weeks to November 3.

Majestic's chief executive, Steve Lewis, said sales of champagne fell by 6.4 per cent on last year as corporate customers tightened their belts.

"I think that customers have not had a lot to celebrate over the past six months and business customers have not been doing as much entertaining," he said.

"When times are tough people don't want to be seen drinking champagne as much."

Majestic said the average price of a bottle of still wine is now £6.19, compared to £5.85 in 2007 and the average spend per transaction increased to £135 from £128 last year.

Sales of fine wine were unaffected by the slump with bottles priced at £20 and over increasing by 10.7 per cent on last year.

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