A Cautionary Tale: Sabering Champagne

[deangold]

The tale of Jim's bravery and derring~do brought to mind....

Many a year ago, I worked for a Hollywood Hotel as Food and Beverage director.  The owner of the hotel was a wine nut and we organized a Chaine des Rotisseurs dinner with the theme of large format bottles.  We had over 600 in attendance and all the wine was served from 6 liter bottles or larger.  I even managed to find a hand painted Perrier Jouet Flower Bottle in 12 liter format.  The wine was made in smaller bottles and then transferred to the large one after disgorging.  It was incredibly rare and expensive {as I recall adding it to the menu added $25 to the price per person!}  My boss and I were talking about what we could do to improve the spectacle and one of us came up with the idea of sabering the bottle and the other said "Let's get a Marine to saber the bottle for us."

A call to Camp Pendleton revealed that they had just such a gentleman: a 21 year career Master Sergeant who would come in dress whites with all his insignias and medals, which formed an impressively large display on his impressively large chest.  He had a impressively large saber at his side in a scabbard impressively well worn from use.  He assured me he never injured anyone with the saber and he would put the cork where I wanted it.  Given the newly plastered and painted walls of the foyer where the attempted murder sabering would occur, we decided to aim the bottle to the open arch of the foyer and land the cork on the balcony of our atrium lobby.

We paced off the required footage from the balcony edge so the cork would fall to the floor to be stopped by the half wall and not fly into the atrium below.  Two of my staff, in white tuxes with white gloves held the bottle while I was the idiot holding the neck.  Our Master Sergeant stood across from me, silent, strong, in intense concentration.  He moved his hand to the saber and whispered to me "don't move" so only I could hear it.  Why wasn't this part of the equation revealed to me before I couldn't run screaming in fear????

The sword made a whoosh as he drew it straight from the scabbard to the neck of the bottle to fully extended like a statue, in a flash.  It was amazing. But, in the brief instant of movement, he also whispered "Fuck!"  Not what you want to hear from your surgeon in a delicate operation or from a man with a large moving sword.

The reason for his expletive became clear as the cork and the sheared off end of the neck of the bottle flew off explosively.  Did they goose up the CO2 of the wine because of the transfer?  Or did he just deliver that much force?  Or did I move?...

He later, after we calmed our nerves appropriately, said "No, my aim was off" as he had never sobered anything larger than a 3 liter before.  It must have been moving very nearly the speed of light as we saw it in excruciating slow motion.  And we were the only two in position to really witness the flight.

The missile cleared under the entry arch of the foyer and was clearly not going to hit gently at the base of the balcony wall.  In fact, it was still rising as it flew over the wall like a Rick Monday line shot to the cheap seats at Dodger Stadium.  I wish Vin Scully could have narrated the mighty blast.

We turned our heads and could see into the atrium as the cork finally arced down, right in the direction of a group of harmless old ladies, sitting facing away from their impending doom, waiting to go to some Hollywood tourist trap for dinner before their evening at the Wax Museum.   One of the ladies had a halo of frizzy white hair.  Not white exactly, but blue.  I said she was old!  This was in the days before blue hair would indicate youth and not great age and bad judgment in hair care products.

We shared the knowledge telepathically that we were about to kill her.  The cork was moving fairly fast and coming down from a great height.  The cork entered the frizz of hair.  We could see the parting of the blue sea as if Moses himself guided the path.  And then, in a second Mosaic level miracle, or was it third including his original trivial parting of the blue waters, it exited out the front, never touching the dear old thing.  Time returned to its normal speed.  Her only knowledge of the incident resulted in her brushing her hair wondering if a breeze or insect had disturbed it.    We later told the scared old lady that something fell off the ceiling of our brand spanking newly renovated hotel lobby.

The cork hit a tile on the floor in front of her, cracking it with a loud retort.  Or it might have hit the far wall and then the floor, as there was a suspicious mark on the stucco plaster.  We never figured it out. The new floor tile, Catalina Pottery hand painted and glazed, cost $300 to replace.   As MasterCard so rightly says"¦. "The tile, $300, the old lady still alive, priceless!"

{Please remember BEFORE CLICKING on this link: it is provided by me and is not only of dubious taste and little propriety, but it is, of course, NSFW} 

Or MasterCard  said something like that!

The Master Sergeant turned to me when we realized that our fears had been avoided by a true hair's breath.  He said "21 years almost down the fucking drain"  I handed off the bottle to my assistant and he supervised the pouring of the champagne.  The Master Sergeant and I went to the lobby to check on the old lady, recovering from her fright at the cracking of a tile in front of her and wonderfully and blissfully ignorant of the real explanaition.  I can't honestly tell you how I did it.

I am sure there are rules about Bourbon consumption in dress uniform while on duty, and I don't know if he was on duty or this was on his own time.  But we went to the lobby bar and hid in the storage closet behind it and both has stiff shots to calm our nerves.  I spoke to the old lady and rushed back to pour the 6 liter burgundies I had amassed.

[JimRice]

Dean, that is indeed priceless.  Thank you.  I needed a good laugh this morning.

[johnb]

Dean  --  Perhaps your best post ever.  Never knew you were such a storyteller.  Love the link.

[JPW]

Dean  --  Perhaps your best post ever.  Never knew you were such a storyteller.  Love the link.

Indeed, Dean is an excellent storyteller. My favorite involves a wine store in Chicago and a frequent purchaser of Chateau "Dickem".

[deangold]

Thanks for the reminder of "that Dickem wine!" I ownder where Richie Phillips is today and what he is doing?  I hope hes not in Colorado unless he is in retirement!

And now i remember another customer who drank Bonneau du Martray, I think it was Batard Montrachet, and 7 up!

But what about my recipe for risotto for Dan Cole?

[DonRocks]

And now i remember another customer who drank Bonneau du Martray, I think it was Batard Montrachet, and 7 up!

It was Corton-Charlemagne.

[deangold]

Sounds right.  I was told by my store manager to "Never sell her that again!"  But a few weeks later I was made store manager and called her and unloaded all the bottles I had.

[mr food]

outstanding!