There are several theories behind the origins of champagne sabering (aka lopping off the tip of the champagne bottle’s neck with a sword or knife.)
Patrick Cappiello, wine director and a partner of both Rebelle and Pearl & Ash restaurants in New York City, has a favorite: As Napoléon Bonaparte was conquering Europe, he shared champagne with his troops, who were armed with swords. They opened bottles by hacking the tops off with their blades. (Some also add that this bottle-opening method was easiest for calvary on horseback.)
“That’s the coolest theory, the one that I always go with,” says Cappiello. “But no matter what the legend, it’s a statement of celebration and should be carried on.”
As Napoleon said, “Champagne! In victory, one deserves it. In defeat, one needs it.”
Considered the go-to guy for champagne sabering, Cappiello was Food & Wine magazine’s Sommelier of the Year in 2014.
He first discovered the allure of sabering about a decade ago from a friend who is one of the country’s top champagne collectors. The friend would saber a bottle of champagne in the corner at the famous Veritas restaurant where Cappiello worked at the time. “It was fun and theatrical for everybody,” he explains.
Fast forward to Cappiello working at the lavish Gilt restaurant in the New York Palace Hotel. In 2012, when they announced their closing they gave a blowout party. “As the night came to an end, the chef and I jumped on the bar of this two-Michelin star restaurant to make a speech and thank everybody,” Cappiello recalls. “I had a 1998 magnum of Dom Pérignon and a chef’s knife.” After the speech Cappiello sabered the bottle and the crowd went crazy. “It was very emotional,” says Cappiello. “That was the moment when I realized, wow, this is very impactful.”
Cappiello’s restaurant Pearl & Ash, was built on a shoestring budget and voted one of the top 50 new restaurants in America by Bon Appétit magazine when it opened in 2013. Whenever they received a great review, which was often, they’d celebrate with a bottle of bubbly.
At one shindig, Cappiello broke out a double magnum of Pierre Peters champagne, got up on the bar with his chef and partner and sabered the massive bottle. “Week after week we just kept doing it. I thought, this is so much fun, let’s keep going,” Cappiello explains. He ultimately found a four-foot-long Katana sword on eBay, which became the restaurant’s saber. In fact, sabering at Pearl & Ash is so popular people take videos and photos of the ritual and post them with the hashtag #sabertownUSA.
Understandably, in this techie age, there’s something alluring and romantic about sabering. “It energizes the room,” Cappiello says. “Opening a bottle of champagne has a celebratory drive behind it. But then to have this very dramatic presentation: you have a sword. You’re up on a bar. Then there’s an intense pop with champagne shooting out. It’s very interactive and exciting. It demystifies the idea of wine.”
This New Year’s Eve Pearl & Ash will be sabering champagne bottles. But if you can’t get there, can you try this at home? Cappiello offered tips to successful sabering. Click through the gallery and read them all.
Don’t saber too late in the evening. Sabering when you’re intoxicated is a bad idea. That’s usually when the problems happen. Do it earlier in the evening when you’re a little more clear headed. When you're drunk you shouldn’t be handling a knife or sword.
Patrick Cappiello (left), Daniel Eddy (executive chef of Rebelle, center), Branden McRill (founder and managing partner of Pearl & Ash and Rebelle)
Make sure that you have a sparkling wine that has a fair amount of pressure.You have to use a serious sparkling wine in order to get it to work. There are slightly sparkling wines that are called pet-nat which don’t work so well. Instead go for champagne, cava, and some proseccos. Franciacorta, a sparkling wine from Lombardy, Italy, is very champagne-like and provides high pressure.
Your bottle should be cold. The cold will keep champagne in the bottle. The warmer your bottle, it will expand and wlll create too high a pressure. So if you use a warm bottle you’re going to lose most of the champagne on the ground. It's better to have it cold.
Take off the entire foil. People make the mistake where they leave the foil around the neck of the bottle. Take it off entirely. If you have foil remaining on the neck, your knife or sword could get caught, not allowing you to saber properly. Get the bottle totally uncovered on the neck.
Make sure you don’t point the bottle toward anybody. Safety is always first. Then take the cage off, which is the metal part that hooks onto the bottle's lip and holds the cork in place. It has to come off. But you have to be very, very careful. The cage is the thing that ensures that the cork isn’t going to come flying out. Essentially it’s like a loaded gun. I’ve had situations where I’ve taken the cage off. Then a minute or two later the pressure builds and it just pulls the cork right out.
Your knife needs to be heavy and thick. If you try to use a thinner, not as sturdy one it’s not going to work as well. And if you’re using a chef’s knife, use the back side.It’s not about the sharpness of the blade. It’s just about making that contact. If you use the front of the blade you'll dent and dull the knife. You’re better off using the back of the knife. You’re going to cause less harm to it.
There’s a seam in the bottle which can indicate the weaker part of the bottle. From the top of the bottle to the base on both sides will be a seam. Basically it’s a mould they put together when they make these bottles. If you can find that seam, that’s where you slide your knife or saber down on the bottle across that seam and to the lip. That little lip held the cage you removed. You want to knock the lip. When you make contact with it, you just slide it down and hit it.
Remember you’re not hacking off the top of this bottle. You’re basically just cracking the tip. Then the pressure in the bottle does the rest of the work. If you see the video, basically I nick the tip of the bottle with my sword and then it pops off. You want to make sure that you’re not hammering the bottle.
Hold the bottle pretty firmly around the base. Some people will hold it with their thumb and palm. But I cradle it in my palm with the base in my hand. You don’t want to hold it up too high because you could cut yourself. You want to get it down as far as you can on the base of the bottle.
Rebelle Restaurant
[The bottle smells fear.] It takes a couple times of practice in order to really master it. The biggest problem people encounter is that they’re nervous. And when you’re nervous that’s when mistakes can happen. If you understand the steps and chemistry behind sabering you can competently do it and it’ll come out good.
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