The next time you have to open a bottle of bubbly and want to be a little extra, try the Sabrage method! This is an alternate, ~fancy~ technique to open sparkling wine and you can easily do it in 7 steps! All you need is a chilled bottle of sparkling and a flat, metal object.

This method is said to be started by Napoleon Bonaparte after his victory in the French Revolution. He used the blunt side of his saber blade to break the cork away from the neck of the bottle and famously quoted “Champagne! In victory one deserves it; in defeat one needs it.” Well Napoleon, I do not think you need to go to battle to enjoy sabering Champagne, Prosecco, Cava or sparkling wine. Making it through another day is reason enough to pop open a bottle of bubbly! Here is how you can do it too. For a video on how to Saber, check out my Instagram page.

1.) Chill

Find the bottle of sparkling wine you want to saber and chill it. This is the most important step! Make sure it has been in the refrigerator for at least a couple hours. To make sure, pop the bottle in the freezer for 15 minutes before sabering. Do not shake it – unless of course you want to make a mess!

2.) De-foil

Take off all of the foil on the neck of the bottle and remove the wire cage from the cork. Make sure that you are pointing the bottle away from another person or valuable objects after removing the cage. Try to keep your hand over the cork sparkling wine has a lot of pressure inside the bottle and can sometimes be unpredictable.

3.) Find the Seam

This is a raised line of glass along the length of the bottle.

4.) Grab your Saber

Just in case you don’t have an actual saber on hand, you can use a butcher knife or even a butter knife. Any flat, metal object will work.

5.) Line it Up

Hold the bottom of the bottle and place the blunt side of your saber on the seam. Angle the saber so that it makes a 45-degree angle with the surface bottle.

6.) Saber!

Following the seam, make a strong, swift strike through the bottom lip on the mouth of the bottle keeping the 45-degree angle. Make sure to strike through! The force behind the saber will make clean break between the neck and the cork contained in the mouth of the bottle.

7.) Enjoy

Pour into your favorite sparkling wine glass and enjoy! Be cautious of glass shards and the sharp edge on the neck. There probably won’t be any glass shards because the method produces a clean break, but it is still a good idea to be cautious.

Okay so, how does this actually work? Sparkling wine has approximately 70-90 psi of pressure inside the bottle because of the bubbles. This is about three times the pressure of air inside a car tire, which is quite a lot! The bottles for sparkling wine have thicker walls than regular wine bottles for this reason. Both wine and sparkling bottles are stronger than they may look, but they still have weak points, one of which is along the seam. Another weak point of the bottle is the bottom lip on mouth at the top of the neck. The seam and the mouth meet to create a “T” creating the ultimate weak point on the bottle. This is exactly where you want to hit the bottle with your saber to create a fracture allowing the pressure inside to release. Still wines do not have this amount of pressure inside the bottle, which is why you cannot saber them.

The Saberage method is my favorite method for opening sparkling and I hope that you can enjoy it now, too!