PARIS, March 13, 2008 (AFP) - The French wine industry voted unanimously Thursday to extend the champagne-growing area to take in more areas that wanted to cash in on record sales of the fizzy drink.

'The area of the appellation, which included 319 communes (districts) covering 33,500 hectares (83,000 acres), will now include 357 communes,' said Yves Bernard of the INAO institute.

INAO decides the boundaries of the geographic area entitled to produce under the coveted Appellation d'Origine Controlee (AOC).

The list of the new areas will be made public within a fortnight, said Bernard after a Paris meeting where the historic expansion decision was voted.

Like other French wines, champagne-labelled bottles are produced only from grapes nurtured in a specially-designated region -- in this case 319 villages spread out across 33,500 hectares of land in northeast France.

Wine experts from the INAO have since March 2006 been working on a list of villages that could join the AOC champagne-producing area based on a series of criteria, in particular soil quality.