Opening a wine bottle

[chezcherie]

What is a sabre?

Also, I have opened a bottle with an electric drill.

voila! en guard!

[joiei]

Should we alert Lowe's to stock up on power drills in preparation for the wine drinkers rush?

you learn something everyday. I have used a Wagner power sprayer to paint with chocolate, now another use for those power tools that I love.

Another excuse for we closet power tool junkies.

[Duncan]

Okay, I've heard of people 'sabering' Champagne bottles.........but I must ask 'why?', that is: here you finally have a bottle of wine that requires no corkscrew, rather, a certain amount of talent to open correctly - to produce the 'sigh of a contented woman' (cannot remember WHO said that, but it's a good one, no?) sound - in gently releasing the cork from the bottle. I thought that this was what Champane service (and consumption) was all about.....? So why do this? I would guess that it would also lead to a loss of quite a bit of the champagne...sort of like shaking the bottle before opening...? Katie, do you know?

two words:

drama

and

tradition

Our local pub/restaurant does champagne evenings with sabrage. So add a few more words: its fun (for us), and it makes money (for them).

You don't actually lose a noticeable amount of champagne opening the bottle this way: provided it is well chilled, and you get the bottles to the glasses reasonably quickly it's no worse than any other way to open champagne.

[tommy]

You don't actually lose a noticeable amount of champagne opening the bottle this way: provided it is well chilled, and you get the bottles to the glasses reasonably quickly it's no worse than any other way to open champagne.

i can appreciate the fun aspect and the drama of it all. but i'm of the thought that disrupting a bottle of sparkling wine to the point where it will come to a quick head and perhaps come out of the top of the bottle (or broken neck in this case) is not the best approach (and from what i've seen on tv, this is what happens...although i suppose if the wine is super-chilled you could retard that reaction a bit if not completely), and could probably be considered wasteful on some level.

that said, i'd stop by your bar on one of those evenings for sure.

i'll check back in later with a sentence that is actually readable.

[Duncan]

You don't actually lose a noticeable amount of champagne opening the bottle this way: provided it is well chilled, and you get the bottles to the glasses reasonably quickly it's no worse than any other way to open champagne.

i can appreciate the fun aspect and the drama of it all. but i'm of the thought that disrupting a bottle of sparkling wine to the point where it will come to a quick head and perhaps come out of the top of the bottle (or broken neck in this case) is not the best approach (and from what i've seen on tv, this is what happens...although i suppose if the wine is super-chilled you could retard that reaction a bit if not completely), and could probably be considered wasteful on some level.

I still don't think its any worse than letting the cork fly out of the bottle: not as controlled as removing it gently, but the bottle itself doesn't move so its just a sudden release of pressure.

Anyway, I thought you might like to see the evidence. First a picture of one of my attempts to sabrage a bottle (I know I had at least two goes, because we've got two photographs of this). The people in the background are Mike (proprietor of The Fish), and the representative of the Confrérie du Sabre d'Or. The champagne was Philippe Brugnon premier Cru, non-vintage.

And just to prove I did eventually succeed, the opened bottle (with the cork beside it):

[Mabelline]

I've had to use the screwdriver and steady pressure method too many times to confess...but it works.

[donk79]

(arielle @ Aug 10 2004, 10:53 PM)

Okay, I've heard of people 'sabering' Champagne bottles.........but I must ask 'why?', that is: here you finally have a bottle of wine that requires no corkscrew, rather, a certain amount of talent to open correctly - to produce the 'sigh of a contented woman' (cannot remember WHO said that, but it's a good one, no?) sound - in gently releasing the cork from the bottle. I thought that this was what Champane service (and consumption) was all about.....? So why do this? I would guess that it would also lead to a loss of quite a bit of the champagne...sort of like shaking the bottle before opening...? Katie, do you know? 

Yes - Drama and Tradition pretty much covers it. It covers a lot of other macho chest beating displays as well. It's just a silly fatuous display of some "specialized" skills. Like tossing a cabre.

Hmmm... Caber... That'd be an interesting way to try to open a bottle!

[Mabelline]

A BIG BOTTLE!! CONAN--STYLE!!

[KatieLoeb]

You guys are silly!

And here I was just trying to think of an example of a ridiculous macho "sport".

I suppose a cabre could be just as useful as a chopstick on one of those Biblically named gimungous bottles!

[mongo_jones]

i had no idea the stone-cutters drank champagne

[Duncan]

i had no idea the stone-cutters drank champagne

No rolled up trouser legs here, just some rather strange French rituals with swords cloaks and large quantities of champagne.

I just found the Confrerie website with more photographs demonstrating how well sharp weapons and alcohol mix.

[MHesse]

I had one of those two pronged wine openers and managed to break the neck of a bottle I was opening. That was foolish, but more foolish still was a bystander who threw the entire bottle away instead of pouring it into a couple big glasses. Even if there were glass particles in the wine, they would have sank to the bottom of the big glass.

I am pretty good at getting those prongs into the bottle, but not so good at getting them and the cork out.

[mklynch]

I was fortunate to have Holly Mondavi teach a class in sparking wine and food. She taught us to open the bottle with a sword as well as food and wine pairing. A week later, a friend brought over a bottle of pinot noir he'd made and I was talking about the class.

I have one of those diamond steels - the closest thing to a sword in my kitchen, and was demonstrating the technique with his bottle and the steel, not at all intending to open the bottle that way. Boy was I surprised (and he as well) when the neck snapped off beautifully of this non carbonated wine - didn't break the window it hit - we filtered through a coffee filter, enjoyed the wine, and now I'm MUCH more careful when demonstrating the technique.