After the holiday time for drinking egg nogs, hot toddies, and wassails, much of the world ends the year on a zippy and festive note with champagne. I love to drink champagne from the glamorous coupe glass.
Champagne drinkers may tell you that the broad surface of the coupe allows champagne to lose its bubbles more quickly, making it less suitable for very dry champagnes. However, the coupe is very good for allowing you to fully smell the champagne. I find I can solve the bubble problem just by drinking my champagne a little bit faster!
Julia Child tried to save her bubbles from a bottle of Dom Pérignon with a stopper. She proved that the champagne was still bubbly three days later.
Dom Pérignon is credited with inventing champagne. He understood the art of blending and used grapes from different parcels of the local farmers.
Champagne was the drink of nobility. Think about the French court at Versailles. They publicized their status by the vessel from which they treated themselves with champagne.
The coupe glass is often claimed to have been modeled from Marie Antoinette’s breast down to the enunciated nipple grooved on the base of the stand. The coupe actually has its origins rooted in England but I find Marie Antoinette’s story to be more memorable (and a bit more of an ice breaking conversation starter on New Year’s Eve).
I think the coupe is so glamorous especially after watching one of my favorite movies from 1942, Casablanca. I like to imagine myself as Ingrid Bergman toasting with hunky Humphrey Bogart. Casablanca has many toasts that work well for a New Year’s Eve celebration. Some of my favorites: Here’s looking at you kid, To America, and We’ll always have Paris.
Coupes were all the rage through the 1930s-1960s. Places like the New York’s Stork Club popularized the coupe in the 1930s when celebrities drank champagne from the coupe. We may see the romantic coupe today at weddings near the ever so popular champagne fountain.
If you’re not drinking champagne in your coupe you could always use it for a sorbet or daiquiri.
Champagne was and still is linked to celebration. Here’s to drinking many glamorous glasses of champagne in a coupe in 2012! As Marie Antoinette would have said to her court, Bonne année et bonne santé! Happy New Year to all!
