Champagne

Why Champagne on New Year’s Eve?

One can assume that a comfortable alcove in heaven is occupied by Dom Pérignon, or whomever it was who invented champagne some three centuries ago. But why champagne, and why New Year’s Eve? e early Romans celebrated feasts with a good slush, then Caesar added two months to a sloppy pagan calendar, and decreed that Roman consuls begin their terms at the start of newly created January. Celebrating the arrival of this New Year idea took root across Europe, then it was taken by European settlers to the Americas. By 1800 it was common to remain awake until midnight, when church bells tolled and rearms red. In some cities, it became tradition to roam from house to house, with the full expectation you’d be invited in for a drink. Doing so spanned the social ladder: American residents from George Washington to FDR traditionally opened the doors of the White House to anyone dressed decently and with a letter of introduction, feasting them with midnight punch and snacks. Elsewhere, servants and slaves would pound on doors and demand midnight drinks.

MoviesMovies One 1852 account of New Year’s festivities noted that taverns served “villainous See trailers & News on Web Express Guide TV or click on the images online at www.webexpressguide.com See trailers & News on Web Express Guide TV or click on the images online at www.webexpressguide.com compounds,” the clergy served Arrack punch and the mayor served lemonade. e air was also reportedly lled with the sounds of “guns and pistols from evening till morning, and with champagne corks from morning till evening.” As the Industrial Revolution minted a new middle class, sales of sparkling wine soared from 6 million bottles in 1850 to 28 million by 1900. And what better occasion to pull out all stops and aunt your aspirations than New Year’s Eve? One could make an argument that champagne’s New Year’s high point occurred in the rst decade of the 20th century at Cafe New Year’s Eve party in France, 1937 Martin’s in New York City. is French restaurant was among the rst rank of “lobster palaces,” where the cream of society went to entertain themselves. On New Year’s Eve, guests could order anything they wanted to drink, as long as they wanted champagne—it was reputedly the rst place to go “champagne only” after 9 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.

“To get a table at all on New Year’s Eve is di cult,” wrote a visitor in 1910, “when you get one you must drink what you are told.”

Martin’s list featured some 200 champagnes—although the distinction between “champagne” and “Champagne” (a protected designation, like Roquefort and Cognac) had not yet been embraced in the United States. And the ow of champagne at Martin’s wasn’t necessarily driven by consumer demand; “everyone got a piece of the action, including the waiters who saved the corks, receiving a kickback from the wine importers for each bottle they popped,” wrote the 1910 guest.

Champagne, like all adult beverages, su ered under the tyranny of Prohibition and was unsteady in its return to the New Year’s Eve table. (In 1967, the winner of the LeMans was evidently the rst to celebrate by shaking and spraying a bottle of champagne, ushering in an era in which athletes celebrate by pouring one of civilization’s most sublime discoveries over the heads of sweaty fellow combatants.) Champagne is back today, the ner brands still sought by royalty and nobility and the growing bourgeoisie. e rest of us, in the meantime, have been nding less-expensive sparkling wines to greet the New Year, like cava and prosecco.

Which, of course, is ne. e important part of New Year’s Eve is the popping of the cork and, yes, I’m aware that the buzzkills say that sparkling wine should never be popped. But the pop! marks a moment in one’s personal chronology, after which everything will be di erent … at least until morning. When you hear that sound you can see Janus smiling, both forward and back.

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