The scene was surreal. Aimee Roberts, director of the Florence Sylvester Senior Center in Laguna Hills, stood in the building’s parking lot, swinging a sword as she decapitated a bottle of Champagne and some of the bubbly came gushing out onto the pavement.
Roberts was demonstrating the art of sabrage, a technique for opening a Champagne bottle with a saber, for members of the senior center’s monthly wine club.
“The first night I ever spent in California years ago, I saw someone standing in the setting sun performing a sabrage and I thought it was so fantastic,” she said.
Roberts had won a trip to the Napa and Sonoma wine regions as a working member of the wine industry in Texas at the time. A recent trip to the Champagne region of France refreshed her memory of the showy sabrage, which she thought would be fun to demonstrate at the wine club.
The method is used for ceremonial occasions and dates to the time of Napoleon, when the sword wielder was often seated on horseback, she said.
The person slides the saber along the seam of the bottle to the lip to break away the top of the neck, leaving the bottle open and ready to pour. Glass shards are blown away with the force of the Champagne bursting from the bottle at 60 to 90 pounds of pressure per inch.
“It’s an exhilarating experience,” she said.
Roberts, who has been the senior center director for two years, came up with the idea of the wine club during the pandemic.
“Many of my neighbors in Laguna Niguel were older, and when I asked them what would be a fun activity, they suggested this,” she said.
The activity fit right in with Roberts’ background working many jobs in the wine industry, including earning the designation of certified sommelier.
She was trained by master sommelier Fred Dame, earning her entry level badge in 1999 and the higher level of “certified” in 2006. At the time, it was a male-dominated profession, she said.
Being a sommelier requires a good working…
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