Champagne, anyone?

Here I am last night, wowing my coach by slicing the cork off a bottle of Veuve with a sabre, Napoleonic style, at the fabulous Wine establishment gathering in the beautiful courtyard of Berkeley Castle. 

So many of us were eager to sabre a bottle that we could hardly keep up with all the opened bottles of bubbly, which definitely put us all in a festive mood. Clinked many glasses myself with my host for the evening, the Wine Establishment’s Laird Kay, who has the unique distinction of being a wine cellar designer, as well as his partner, Spafax MVP Raymond Girard, jewelry designer Jane Apor of jRox and Interior Design Show head Shauna Levy and her Dutch-born husband Anne, who is the North American rep for Mooi (and, who , apparently, was almost denied status here in Canada because the immigration authorities, unfamiliar with his unusual Dutch first name, were insistent that he was a woman). My date for the night was the delightful and talented Stephanie Cameron, who by day, works as an editor with Zig, but by night has a secret role as a photographer, if you pour her sufficient amounts of champagne. 

I have to brag that I was one of the few females who were victorious in attempting to open a bottle in this manner, although it really isn’t all that difficult. It’s all about hitting it at precisely the right spot in the seam with sufficient swagger–since the bottle is already at 80 lbs of pressure from the carbonation inside, it doesn’t take much to blow the cork right off in a satisfying spume. 

But it sure does feel good–and then you get to celebrate your little victory with a glass of champagne! 

Victory is Mine!