CHAMPAGNE

Thursday, December 29, 2005

New Year’s Eve is coming! The champagne will flow!

That’s about all I know about champagne---the cork is popped when there is something to celebrate. I guess I haven’t celebrated much in my lifetime. Well no, I have celebrated a lot. I guess my choice of drink was diet coke or something, I don’t know.

The question of how much I know about champagne came up when I invited my son and daughter over for New Year’s Eve. I told them we would open a bottle of champagne that had been in the refrigerator for several years. My daughter said that it might be “suspect” after that many years. Who knew? Not me! I still don’t know.

A young couple I married several years ago gave the bottle of champagne to me after the wedding celebration. There were several bottles left over so they dropped by the church building and left one in the foyer. I took it home and put it on the wine shelf in the refrigerator. It has been there ever since.

We were sitting at a beautiful table at the Orange Tree Resort. We were celebrating another wedding I had just performed. I reached toward my champagne glass and as I did I hit the top of the glass and champagne spilled on the table. Jon Mouer looked across the table and said, “Brother, you’re drunk already and you haven’t even taken a drink.” Well, not quite, but I really don’t know much about champagne.

Do you suppose that champagne in the refrigerator is still good? There’s one way to find out.