I was 16 and I was shooting my friend’s band; they were playing a show at the legendary Viper Room in L.A. The drummer went around the block and bought a cheap bottle of champagne for six bucks. We hung out in the customary beat up white band van before the show started and shared the bottle. It was disgusting in hindsight but it was first time I had champagne so I thought it was delicious and it was even better because I shared it with good friends.

Of course, New Year’s Eve. I drank a whole bottle of champagne and chased it with some shrooms. The two ended up canceling each other out and the whole night I spent hiding in the corner with my glass of water watching the drunk people dance. I wouldn’t recommend the combination.

the first time i have champagne was far from glamorous

i was young, 18 or so, just learning to drink and me and my friend had bought huge amounts of champagne for a girls night in. As with those occasional unfortunate nights people were unexpectedly busy or sick and it ended up being just us two. Suffice to say we got thoroughly smashed and i woke up with my nipples painted with silver nail polish and a sprained wrist.

I don;t recommend it, its a bitch to get off.

Oh, champagne… How I love thee! I was a bridesmaid in my cousin’s wedding. Although I wasn’t supposed to be drinking it, I couldn’t help trying a few sips… thus, our love affair began!

Every year my grandparents would go up to Mount Desert Island in Maine for the summer. My grandfather had died the previous January with the ground too cold to bury him, so his ashes had lain in a tobacco jar in the study for six months and we were bringing him up one last time for burial at sea. With a rental from our favorite harbor tour and instructions from the rector to stand facing downwind we set out to dumb Granddad off the boat. Champagne was served, Veuve Clicquot for his widow. I was fourteen; it was not the first time I had tried alcohol, but it was the first time I had enjoyed it.

new years. senior year of highschool a whole bottle of bubbles did more than tickle my tastebuds..they tickled my dancing shoes as well..inpromptu strip tease for my friends mom..to the tunes of kiss by prince…apprently the michale jackson crotch grab was my signature move..all thanks to ht eclassiness of Korbel.

My first time with champagne was on a speedboat in Dana Point on Labor Day…Ironically enough, it was Veuve. We went up and down the coast to Newport and back and it was an unbelievable day….until the next day, I was a lobster.

I grew up with conservative parents who never had a drop of alcohol in the house or anything, but the rest of the extended family was a little more liberal. My first sip of champagne came with our 2nd Christmas in the US. I was 5 and very curious at what my aunts and uncles were drinking. After one sip I immediately made a face and said “BLEH”, thus starting my stint as comic relief for that Christmas family gathering.

My next taste of champagne would come almost 20 years later at a friend’s wedding. Most recently I just tried the Veuve Cliquot Demi-Sec at a cousin’s wedding and absolutely loved it. Amazing taste, amazing quality.

Oh my, it’s almost absurd how classic it was! Now, to be sure, I’m sure I’d had little sips of champagne here or there but my first experience was in my friends loft in DC on New Year’s Eve when I was 16 (not that I endorse how hammered I ended up getting, I hadn’t learned the finer life of drinking). The host of the party was an incredibly eclectic collector of things, with a whole walk in closet of board games from before 1980, for example. The board games were set up all around the loft, everyone received a unique, wild stylez era “party boy” breakdancer hat upon entrance and then, 10 minutes before the ball dropped they brought them out… 12 bottles of Veuve! Evey kind of champagne I’ve tasted since just feels like cheating.

My first time with Champagne was when I was 20. I saved up some cash to buy a bottle of Veuve to share on New Year’s Eve. It was then, that I realized how good drinking fine champagne could be, and why we should all treat ourselves sometimes.

it tickled, i laughed…sublime!

My first taste of champagne was my first encounter with alcohol: New Years’ Eve, when someone poured a liberal amount of cheap stuff in my apple juice. It tasted all right, but after only a glass I ended up with a throbbing headache for the rest of the night.

The first time I ever had champagne was at the funeral of my kindergarten teacher. It seemed inappropriate, but it was all I had handy and the liquor stores were all closed. The ironic part? Her name was Miss Corkpopper.

I graduated from college, and my parents got me Veuve to celebrate with—it was awesome. I’ve always seen the orange label, but I never knew how good it was until then. I’ll never forget it.

Well I’ve never had champagne, but maybe my first time could be under one of these gorgeous lights?

first time I had champagne was at one of my cousin’s wedding, and wanting to be a grown up, my mom let me have some champagne during the first toast. of course as a child, i thought it would be sweet like juice, but i was turned off by the taste…fortunately i’ve matured a lot more since then :)

This is nuts…ouch.

At fourteen, I was living in Germany, attending a international school. Needless to say, we lived in a hof, a tiny little village (just knowing that there is a special term for a town that is smaller than a village says it all). Bored, I signed up for anything and everything that would take me away from crappy school and this no-life town.

Enter Model U.N. I was part of an elite team representing… okay, in all honesty we were nerds, nothing privileged here. It was all so new, so foreign, so without parentage. we were free for the first time to party. Now, we just needed to figure out what PARTAAAAY, really meant?

Booze. Bingo. Finger on the nose, bills in hand we headed into the local shop. After observing a tiny girl reach up and place a bottle of wine and cash on the counter and the cashier oblige her, we headed inside. We went fast, but not too fast as to draw any shoplifter notions, and grabbed up a bottle of bubbly and some cool blue stuff. It came to the equivalent of fifty bucks. We did’t want to backpedal, that could cost us the whole enchilada. So we paid, but that was all our moola. And for what some sparkly stuff and blue stuff? Okay, they looked cool… we were suckers for the labels, hungry for the design. And, blue!

Blue is not so good. Turned our tongues blue and our stomachs inside out. Yuck. In hindsight, I laugh at drinking an entire bottle of something that is meant to be an ‘additive’ in small portion to a mixed drink. Moving on.

Bubbly. This was better—way better. It tickled our noses in a different way than soda. Our one friend, charles, drank only the smallest portion and was already climbing the walls. Maybe he was allergic. We were still laughing as the effects hit the rest of us. We were all lightweights, for this was our first time.

I was staring at the ceiling when the call came in. “Chuck’s out the window!” What? I lunged forward and nearly hurled. The hotel window was wide open. We were on the fourth floor. I hurried, half expecting to see him splat down in the parking lot, but he was already two floors above ours… climbing the exterior cable line attached to the side of the hotel. We yelled as loud as we could (while not attracting unwanted authority or sponsor attention), but he was gone. He stopped on the seventh floor and looked down from a open, lighted window. “There’s a party inside,” he yelled back down, “I’m going in.” And, he did.

As I was climbing up the cable wire behind another friend, all that raced through my mind was that I was going to die. This was top-fool stupid. This was the kind of mistake you only made once in life, because it was over. No second chance. But, we made it. All of us. That little wire held. I smiled as I stretched my leg inside the window ledge. But, it was a tall window and (though I was fairly tall) I couldn’t touch the floor inside. Someone had taken the nearby chair to rest their ass and now by crotch was paying the toll. This is nuts…ouch.

I faded in and out during the party, but my last memory is of going to the restroom (sitting down for stability). Mid-stream, a girl popped out from the bath curtain. She was naked. I think she was? A least in my remembered version she was? I talked to her, all the while seated pants-down on the toilet. I don’t recall what we said, but it must have been pretty great, because I didn’t care that I was there de-pantsed. I like to think I beared my soul as well, but I’ll never know. That was the last I recall.

Next morning I awoke in my own room. Alone. Damn. I hoped that I hadn’t climbed back down that cable, but my hands hurt like hell from holding onto it as long as I did. It was late. I threw on clothes and rushed down to group breakfast. My friends were there. They all made it. We laughed as we ate. Secretly, I think we all wondered if we had brain tumors for the throbbing headaches. But, none of us mentioned a word about it. It was good times. Well, it was a good first time… I think?

Champaign Spiders
16 years old, my friend and I were drinking champaign and feeling quite bubbly about the whole sophisticated affair. I poured yet another glass and the bubbles were actually forming the shape of a spider. So cool! We sat there looking at it, totally transfixed by our artistic insight into the champaign: bubbles… shape of spider… wow cool… until I poked my finger in the glass to realize there actually WAS a dead spider in my glass and the champaign bubbles had simply surrounded the little fellow. Ah, first times.

I was at a Greek/Filipino wedding.. talk about one loud party. Open bar and no carding = heaven.

It was college for me — I had a boring childhood. A supermarket brand bottle and a night on mattresses in a dorm room. Sounds more climactic than it was, sadly….

Having been a non-drinker until the age of 26, it seemed fitting to have started out with bubbly. I remember it so well (picture wavy lines as we fade back to 2005)…
I was at a party, surrounded by glam ladies and suave men, and feeling a little lost. I wasn’t driving home that night, so I thought - what the hell! I’m going to have a drink.
The minute the bubbles hit my tongue, I knew I’d found a friend. After twenty years of drinking coca cola, it was like a glass of water in the desert.
That delicate ‘pop’ of bubbles - something I can only compare to standing in fine rain - felt amazing, and as the alcohol coursed through my system, I felt a little more amazing myself.
Soon, I was chatting to people I’d never met, without a care in the world - glass of bubbly clutched in one hand, the other in my pocket.

Too bad about the next morning - which is another story altogether!

It was my aunt and uncle’s wedding. I was 11 year old and having the time of my life. Dancing up a storm, telling jokes to everyone in my family, pretty much acting like an adult. I’m pretty sure my imitation of an adult was a lot funnier than my jokes. So I’m heading back to my table to grab some grub and without warning, without any notice, my father trips on a table cloth behind me and spills champagne all over my head. As the bubbly champagne trickled down my head, my jaw dropped in jaw and humiliation. Off the tip of my nose, little drops found it’s way into my gaping mouth. That Ladies and Gentlemen, is the first time I have ever tasted champagne.

My first champagne experience was a few years ago on Christmas Eve. Me being Jewish, I don’t have anything to ever do on Christmas Eve. So myself along with my cousin and both of our boyfriends decided to go out for a dinner and drinks. After dinner we ended up at an Irish tavern on the Upper East Side where we drank mini bottles of champagne with straws, and kept ordering rounds of the bubbly along with shot glasses filled with green cocktail olives. It was a great time, and is now a tradition that has been going strong ever since.

My first time was when I was 15 on my birthday, for I was born on new years eve!

My friend snuck a bottle of champagne into the limousine that took us to prom. After the limo dropped us off at the hotel our prom was at (downtown in Chicago), we wandered through the grimy streets of Lower Wacker Drive in our tuxedos until we found a small alley to chug the bottle in. Classy.

First sip ? On a boat large at sea on a moon litten night in the carrabeans, Jamaica if i remenber well. I was 15, cruising with my parents and some of their friends, i got buzzed very quickly and was amazed by the light of the moon over the beautiful water.

I’d had many sparkling wines before, but the first time I had chapagne it was a bottle of Veuve Clicquot my roommmate bought me for my birthday. I didn’t drink it that night, instead saving it for another day. It sat in cupboard for almost a year until I’d decided to bring it to a party.

We had a great time as I met his friends. We chatted, ated, danced on the slippery hardwood. The house was gorgeous with floor to ceiling windows 20 feet high that looked out over the Georgia Strait.

We waited til everyone cleared out and eventually broke out the champagne.

He poured us both glasses and we sat on the couch, looking out at a royal blue sky and an inky black ocean.

When I first drank champagne it was more than just a flavour. It was a sensation. I felt like tiny flowers blossoming in my mouth. Delicate cherry blossoms, fragrant and light. It evoked thoughts of the glass pyramids of the Louvre lit up at night, clear & beautiful. Since then Veuve Clicquot has always been my champagne of choice.

Once upon a time…(i.e. it was new year’s)

I was empty-lipped at 1200, but after we had both had a bottle I knew in my heart of hearts that the one I lusted for had finally realized what I had known for so long: we were meant for each other!

I woke up the next morning on his couch with his dog; he was locked, surely defensively, in his bedroom.

I don’t want to come across as “Oh woe is me.” How wonderful that champagne empowered me to play house - to make my dreams a drunken reality.

The first time I had champagne poured on my will be 5/1/2009.

First time I had champagne? New years eve party when I was 15 - it was absolutely amazing…

I was 13 when I had my first sip. It was a mimosa at the rotating restaurant in Atlanta. We were visiting my aunt and uncle and they took us to this restaurant that rotated high above the atlanta skyline. It was a clear day, not hazy as Atlanta can be. Picture the early 80’s, this 13 year old sitting in this, at the time, swanky restaurant, dressed in suit, overlooking the Atlanta skyline, scoring a mimosa from the waiter. My parents let me have it probably because I had the balls to order it. This was also the first time I ordered escargot. A day of firsts….

my first experience with champagne…was my senior prom. evening went well until my date said he wasn’t feeling well. He dropped me off at a friends and left me with a bottle of champagne… so he could go to a party dateless. apparently i was his second choice for prom date….and his first choice was going to be at the after party. that bottle of champagne and i became close friends that evening. no glass of course- straight out of the bottle. in my prom dress getting drunk alone while swinging on my friends swing set.

In Spain we use to drink cava, it’s the name of the same kind of sparkling wine that champagne but made in the Catalonia region. I remenber my first time was when I was ten. At home they use to buy a cheap cava only to drink a toast to the New Year’s Eve, I tasted my mother’s cava glass. It was awful! Years latter, during my cousin wedding I tasted a good champagne, I think it was a Möet & Chandon and I loved it.

It was in Highschool at a house party. One of my friends was dating a 25 year old and was supplying us with alcohol. People were into playing “Edward 40-hands” (duct taping 40’s to both of your hands) and I decided to be “classy” and play “Edward Andre-hands” with my clique (duct taping bottles of cheap andre champagne to our hands).

After we each drank (or attempted to drink) 2 bottles of cheap champagne we learned that we had invented “post-glamorism” because

champagne :: glamorous
as
house party drinking game adapted to champagne in efforts to be classy :: post glamorous.

Since then we have come to love being post-glamorous in many other aspects of our lives. It ends up being defined as anything that is done in attempt to be dignified, classy, glamorous, or otherwise looked up to- that blows up in your face and ends up having the opposite effect.

My first time with Champagne was a on a family trip to France. I was 11 years old, but at the time I definitely believed I was 25. After 3 sips I fell asleep under the table in the restaurant.

My first time with champagne was at a friend’s house with her extremely loud and festive Italian family. We toasted each other for hours. The only thing I remember distincly from that night are the little bubbles in the drink.

I had my first sip at a friend’s party. A sip turned into a few gulps..and a few gulps turned into..”what happened to all the champagne?” Me and a bunch of girls got completely smashed and ended up passing out, or atleast thats what i thought. Little did i know, we ended up filming about 2 hours worth of completely idiotic recklessness on my camera. To top it off, my parents came home the next day while we were passed out and watched me making out with my friends on my camera.

My first taste of champagne was a spoilt bottle of Dom Perignon that my parents had saved for my 18th birthday. They were very upset needless to say. Every other experience has been magic

The first time I remember having champagne was when I visited Italy when I was 13. My cousin and I, who were the same age, were sitting with his parents in a very fine restaurant. I always fondly remember how my cousin grabbed his glass and chugged it all in one go.

My first time with champagne was pink champagne and vodka. It was the morning after our high school prom/party about 5 years ago and was meant to be a very posh champagne breakfast. It was a beautiful sunny day, all my friends were there - but having not actually eaten any breakfast the effects of the bubbly soon took control. I ended up so legless that they had to hide me in a bush from my dad when he turned up. Definately an experience i’ll never forget

The first time I had champagne was when I was 13 on New Year Eve. I remember it very clearly because it was at my grandmothers gorgeous midcentury modern home she had lived in for 50 years, the designer of which was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, so it was beautifully done.

It felt very decadent and fancy. I dont remember if I liked it or not, but I had that glass in my hand the whole night, and didnt want to drink too much because I was positive I wouldnt get a refill. Im not sure it was a very good idea to give a 13 year old champagne, but it didnt hurt!

This lamp would be the perfect inspiration for my master bedroom. Ive been wanting to redo it for awhile, and dont know what direction im going to go in, But the orange and the asian style lamp would be perfect!

P.s Didnt you go to france last year for a Veuve event? and you stayed in that chateaux? fun

We were 16. My cousin, a friend, the friend’s older brother (key, since he was old enough to “buy”) decided to go to the county fair. He bought champagne for the pre-party. After a couple of glasses, my cousin, always a nervous Nelly about getting in trouble, had an asthma attack and we ended up taking her to the emergency room. We forgot about the champagne until the next morning when our friend’ dad found it in the trunk of the car. Opps.

an adults finger dipped into a glass at a birthday party …

i was 18 when i had my first champagne. it was on new years eve and my girlfriend brought a mini bottle of veuve clicquot (sic!). it was a bit too fizzy for my taste, but she liked it and that was the only thing that was important, hehe.

I was 7 or 8 in China…no under age drinking laws!?! At a wedding reception, they came around and poured Champagne in all the glasses. I just picked up a glass and started drinking thinking it was some kind of juice. It was sweet, tasted good, in no time I was down 2 glasses. 20 minutes later, didn’t feel so good, went outside for a walk and threw up all over…hehe!

it was the christmas of 94. i was ten. we celebrated with a small glass of champagne… i thought it was just apple cider. it was sweet but sour at the same time… i didnt know if i liked it or didnt. it had a lot of bubbles and i always wondered where the bubbles came from.

I was 16 in Paris on the bank of the Seine around midnight celebrating youth.

This is the poem I wrote about it.- I can’t believe I still have it lol

Ode to Champagne
The night they invented champagne they had me in thought,
Imagining youthful follies at all hours of the day and night,
With the sun or moon in our presence,
Sickness so wretched,
After too much of a good thing,
I believed Le Horla was sharing my glass,
Memories so fond,
Some of the île paresseuse
Or of passantes, and tempêtes
And many of love,
Love of friends,
Love of family,
Love of fun,
And Love of life.
Champagne,
More nourishing than pan de vida.
Bottles, corks, glasses, bubbles, grapes, alcohol, fizz.
In the cups of Kings and Queens,
In the bouches of those who celebrate.
O, Champagne, I need not any event to celebrate.
O, Champagne, inspire me as you do painters, ateliers, and poets.
My muse, as precious as gold, your complexion shimmers ever more heavenly.
You tickly my senses ever so softly.
Champagne aid me in my search for true love,
Be my guide through all paths.
O, Champagne,
Make me giggle,
Make me cry,
Make me love.

poor student…/ apartment broken into../ all cds stolen, camera, stereo(my whole life)../ it was my 22nd birthday../ whole Uni class got together bought me a huge bottle of champagne../ very drunk../ still have bottle 11 years later…/ The End../

i remember buying my first bottle of champagne - veuve actually, for my friends 21st birthday dinner. definitely felt grown up bringing a bottle of champagne to him. It was fabulous and a very memorable night…

Funnily enough, the first time I ever had champagne was with Tom Dixon.

Well, not really. In all honesty I can’t actually remember the first time I ever drank champagne, inevitable when one is raised in such a hedonistic family. In fact, it was most likely Veuve Clicquot and not milk which I suckled from my mother’s breast…

I’d just broken up with my second boyfriend, and my friends (how i love them) decided to just get some alcohol to cheer me up. They ended up just invading their parent’s private stashes; we got some red wine and of course a tall bubbly.

My first sip of champagne; the only thing i said was: “WOW. This tastes a lot better than beer.”

Champagne is still our “inside drink” thing when one of us gets dumped.

& i still don’t like red wine. (:

Those lamps are gorgeous! Unfortunately I have no champagne tale to tell - i don’t think I’ve ever had the real stuff (you could throw in a bottle if I win?!)But I did have some cheap fizzy wine for my 18th and my 21st..it was all very civilised.

I somehow conviced the waiter at a weddingeception to hand me a glass - guess he got caught up the the pre-toast rush.

The pictures are lovely and the lamps are stunning ! Thank you for this contest.

The bubbles up my nose and a tart attack - that’s what i remember about my first taste of champagne at a New Year’s Eve party when i was in my late teens. Maman sweetened the taste with a strawberry.

I proposed to my wife 2 years ago at a restaurant in Sorrento Italy. Luckily she said yes and we ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot to celebrate. We have been married almost a year now and we always drink the same champagne on special occasions (including our wedding day) as it always brings back amazing memories!

I actually can’t remember the first time I drank champagne….. However, I believe it was when I was in college and as were celebrating someone’s birthday with a bottle of don perrion. On ex-boyfriend ended up breaking a glass that looked like a smiley face (we drew a face on it and kept it for a long time). I just remember how wonderful the sensation was of having “little sparks” bubbling in my mouth and the happiness that followed.

My first champagne can’t really be called that at all - “sparkling white wine” is the technical term! Spumante Bambino is the actual name, I don’t know if they have it in the states, but it costs about $12 for 1.5L and is almost pure sugar. Delicious… Our first special “champagne” occasion was the night myself and two girlfriends broke onto the rival high school’s football field, climbed into the announcer’s box and drank the whole bottle out of cheap plastic wine glasses, singing punk songs the whole time. An auspicious beginning to a hopefully lifelong habit!

Also, I’m a lighting designer and Tom Dixon is a genius. That is all. Seacrest out!!

never had champagne but i can only imagine that the first time i do it’ll be with an 80’s hair metal band walking behind me, still playing. most likely while running from the cops with my skateboard tucked under one arm and a shaved poodle under the other. hmm, dilemma, how would i be… oh, and the champagne is anti-gravity and just floats into my mouth.

I don’t remember drinking champagne until I tasted my first sip of Veuve. Suddenly, it all made sense: THIS is why people sing the praises of “the bubbly”. It was 1996, and I have refused all others since then. I celebrate with nothing else.

It was at the Moet-Chandon Fashionshow in 2006 in Berlin. The Party took place in the Parochial-Church in Berlin-Mitte and was the first big fashion-party in my life. It was really nice evening with some good friends, but at the end I really had to teke a taxi to get home… After, I think, two or three glasses too much :-)

i don’t remember the first sip, the smell, the design of the bottle or anything related to that. I know i remember the flavor and the moment. i had it with a very special person.
champagne is like a soul-healer liqueur

My whole family was having brunch to celebrate my grandparents’ 50th anniversary. I was about 5 years old when my uncle handed me a glass of the bubbly. I drank up when we had our toast and loved it. Still do.

on a domestic train alone at night in a berth i couldn’t afford traveling through rain

First time with champagne?? Wow…it was the first day of the year!! Champagne, party, New Year’s Eve, Girl and…..well, the rest of the story i don’t have to tell!!!

first sip was bubbly, very dry, and gave me a feeling of luxury summer… :)

I was 19 and at my best friend’s house for New Years. At her house for holidays they go all out for their drinks: cocktails before dinner, wine during, whiskey after, and then the finale is champagne at midnight.

My first experience with Champy was bittersweet.
I loved the taste experience, but such a lovely glass of drink was proceeded by getting shot in the groin with a cork and soaked in bubbly. And that’s why my best friend is no longer allowed to open corked bottles.

My first time with champagne, we could not get to cork off to save our lives! My two girlfriends and I were 19 and thought we would be posh by having some champers. Eventually we decided two should hold the bottle and one at the cork (me). We finally got it to open, champagne went Everywhere and I went ass over tea kettle and ripped my new dress! It was hilarious though and I have since become much better and popping the corks! :)

My first taste of champagne was at a wedding when I was…10. It tickled my nose.

Oh, the girl who drinks her first glass of champagne in a plastic mug on Ft.Lauderdale beach… (Me.) In high school, we rented the cheapest hotel rooms we could find to spend the night on the beach and not have to drive home. I was 16 and staying at the Yankee Clipper. Pop! went the bottles, and our feet slipped into the cool sand. Some bubbly and good company— it’s a recipe for a good time, and I’ve followed it ever since (only now we prefer flutes, most of the time).

My first, and unoriginal encounter with champagne was at a New Year’s Eve party. My friends and I decided it would be a fantastic idea to by champagne by the case, so that everyone at the party would have at least two bottles to themselves. To my surprise, this turned out to be a horrible idea. With a supply of champagne large enough to last us through any nuclear disaster or apocalypse, we quickly discovered that we could spray champagne all over one another AND drink it to excess. The last thing I remember is holding a bottle vertically over my mouth. I woke up the next day with a marching band headache, and walked calmly to the bathroom to heave.

At around 7 years old, I mistook some bubbly for juice.

And that is the end of my story.

rolling stone’s 1000th issue party at hammerstein … i somehow got down to the front row of the roped off area and after the event had totally descended into music fueled chaos, at one point I wound up with a full bottle in my hand while The Strokes melted my face off with guest appearances from Lou Reed and Eddie Vedder. a lovely introduction to this delightful beverage.

I was a waiter working my way through design school at a higher end restaurant and when i first started my manager put the fear of god into me about champagne service. I had managed to go weeks without anyone ordering so much as a flute when the hostess gave me a very important table… a local pseudo celeb. I told them how it was my first time, and I asked that they be gentle. The pop was magical and they smiled at me tenderly. I left the table very proud and went out back for a smoke. I’ll never forget that night.

The first time I had Champagne I was 19. I grew up in a pretty conservative household and hadn’t had anything but sips of my dads wine. It was the summer after my Sophomore year of College and I was heading off for two month to work at a summer camp. My mom gave me a glass of champagne with two blackberries in it, I was completely giddy and shocked. My mom rarely drank and to give her underage daughter a glass of champagne was way out of character. We sat on the porch and talked about my new boyfriend, and watched the sunset. She let me become an adult that night.

My first experience with champagne, was at my exes’ family christmas party. His mother finished a bottle herself and stripped down to her long johns, while his uncles sprayed another bottle over the non-family members (myself). Not the best first experience but my champagne experiences since then, more than make up for it.

I was at work on new years eve. Around 2pm some people from the production side of things come in with orange juice and champagne. My first mimosa was almost sweeter than getting to leave work 3 hours early!

to celebrate my first show friends brought over a bottle. it was horrid, cheap stuff. soon after i had some of the good stuff. been hooked ever since.

The first time I tasted champagne was at my sister’s wedding when I was 14. I was one of the bridesmaids and during the toast at the reception I switched my glass of sparkling grape juice with a groomsman’s flute of champagne. No one saw me do it and the groomsman didn’t know the difference so I got to drink the whole thing.

My first sip of champagne was on New Year’s Eve (of course) when I was 13. It was my first holiday back in New York after I had moved away, and my cousin and I decided to steal a bottle of Dom Perignon from the adults. My uncle had so many bottles, he didn’t even notice. We went into one of the far away bathrooms in another wing of the house and downed that bottle, plus some liquor-filled chocolates (thinking we’d get drunk). Needless to say, it was a good thing we were in the bathroom already.

The second time I could even THINK about sparkling wine ever again wasn’t until I was 16. My friend’s sister picked up the cheapest case she could find, and it tasted DELICIOUS…and not like butt at all! ^_^.

Oh my first time. I remember it well. I was trying to be Ultra romantic with my (now ex) girl friend. It was our first big date together and I wanted to be Mr. GQ. So I set up a nice pic-nic under a moon lit nit sky with chocolate strawberry’s and champagne (I paid $12 bucks for it at Harris Teeter). I thought I was big time going all James Bond style. The Strawberry’s were a big hit but the champagne turned out to be a bust. The evening ended with me driving her home and drinking the champagne on the deck of my friends house smoking a cigar. I look back at it now and laugh at how cool I thought I was and how UnCool I ended up being.

However, to this day, I love champagne. Even with my poor excuse of a start in drinking it.

My first time with champagne was when i was 15. It was new years eve, i remember every one gathering around the table moments before the countdown saying “take a glass”. The tall thin glass with bubbels that never seemed to stop forming, i was in an aw of this fasinating drink. Forgeting about the count down i look to the dinning table in search of the bottel, when i found it i was shocked. “Moet”, what was this incredibal liquid, as i have been acustome to getting sparkling cider in the past. It was champagne, and this would be my first time.

3… 2… 1… Happy New Year… The tost to a new year and a new drink, but as i sip i realize that it looks much better then it tast. This weird foreign liquid that tast of nail polish remover, discusted and in shock i spit the champaigne out with the look of death all along my face. How could this amazing dream of forever bubbeling liquid be so nasty, and how can all these people enjoy it? Confused and younge i never touched champaigne again untill my alcohol palet was up to par.

This was my first experience with champagne and although it was off to a rough start i now thoroughly enjoy champagne and can lough at my first new years experience.

Matric dance (Southern hemisphere version of a prom) and I was with the girl of my dreams. My cool uncle dropped us off at the after party with a bottle of finest French bubbly. I was living the moment - until the next morning.

8 years old at my oldest sister’s wedding. flowergirl sporting a terrible floral print dress and matching headband. oh but the bubbles!

I was 9 or 10. It was New Year’s Eve. There was a mixup with the Martinelli’s and the proper champagne. Needless to say, after becoming acquainted with the taste, there was no turning back. Have been a bubbly fan since…

I believe my first time to be when my parents let me try some when I was younger. It was okay at the time, but it couldn’t hold a candle to Martinelli’s.

My first sip of champagne was at my Uncle’s wedding when I was about 14. I was allowed to have a glass and then I got all drowsy and fell asleep for the last 2 hours of the reception!

I’m 24. On my fourteenth birthday my mom let me have some champagne, I ended up having four mimosas. I then went and skateboarded with friends. It was a great day.

A golden sunset, that glistening globe on the horizon, the sun rays bursting through the clouds and butterflies and bees fluttering and buzzing around. My new boyfriend and I were having a sushi picnic in the rolling grassy hills sprinkled with yellow tulips. We toasted our new romance in June of 1999. That was my first time with champagne…the last time I had champagne was two weeks ago at my wedding where I married that boyfriend.

I was 22 at my friend’s wedding. Little did I know how strong champagne was and how long it stays in your system.

I was 13. In Las Vegas for the first time (NYE!) with my parents and their friends. The waitress was topping everyone up before the midnight countdown, and missed that I was so young. yay!

I lived in Brooklyn, and a good friend who lived in midtown Manhattan was having a small game night get-together for a few close friends who had never met each other. So we sat around playing RISK in his beautiful apartment, and as New Years Eve had been the week before, he said he had three or four bottles of champagne left over in the fridge. The four of us managed to drink all available bottles and laughed and battled it out for world domination on the game board, until the wee hours of morning. One of most enjoyable nights with friends I can remember.

First champagne sip : I was pretty young, 8 or something like that. It was at christmas eve (in France we often celebrate christmas on the 24th in the evening). My parents wanted me to taste this beauty, just a few sips, in my small glass. This was probably the first time I drank alcohol. Starting with champagne is pretty nice, isn’t it ? :)
I remember being surprised by the very thin bubbles. I’ve really liked it since the first sip, and then started a love story :)

Champagne with green olives… champagne with strawberries dipped into hot white chocolate, champagne with smoked salmon, champagne with gingerbread and foie gras… Champagne when you’re sad, champagne when you’re happy… Seducing champagne, partying champagne…

I love it !

I was 14 and it was New Years Eve. I was on vacation with my family in Costa Rica. We had befriended several ex-pats who led us on a candle lit walk up the side of a mountain. At the top we found an 8 story observation tower, with the very top level reachable only by ladder. As my new friends and I climbed up it with a contraband bottle of champagne, I worried out loud at the difficulty of climbing back down the ladder after we’ve consumed it. One of the other girls replied, “we’ll fly down!”

On my 15th Birthday my dad gave me a bottle along with a bunch of roses to celebrate my entry on womanhood.
I felt special and all grown up.
The bubles gave me an unique, and up to that day, unknown pleasure..
Little did I know at the age of 40 to drink champagne would become a moment shared with special people to celebrate my real womanhood!
The feeling of sipping it only gets better and better!
And the stories following it, well those I won´t share….

My first taste of champagne… was intermittently given to me as a teen at home on new years. Just a taste…. helped me appreciate the tastes of finer wines, champagnes, liqueurs, and beers as I approached true drinking age. My first evening actually drinking champagne was on new years eve, in Melbourne. We were on the Yarra river for fireworks and celebrations… the champagne was delicious and flowing bubbly and free… a truly euphoric evening.

I was 8, at a wedding, and on the prowl for sparkling apple cider. I took a sip of champagne on accident, jumped up and down with glee, and my parents knew it was going to be trouble.

At my bar mitzvah…13 years old…offered a glass in front of the whole crowd…full out spit take. I think the bubbles caught me off guard.

My palette has matured considerably since then. Nevertheless; how embarrassing!

I was barely 21, in the Hilton in downtown Atlanta at the awesome Sunday jazz champagne brunch in their restaurant. I was there because of Dragon*Con though, so it was kind of a nerdy occasion.

7yr old at my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary- my ever-so michevious cousin dared me to steal a bottle off the table (she told me it was ginger ale) and we sat by on the edge of the pool and took a sip. We both hated it and it gave me hiccups for about an hour. I know love the yellow label! Went to Riems during harvest season in the fall a few years ago and we visited the Veuve maison and toured the caves- truly amazing experience I recommend to any and all champagne lovers!

The first time I had a glass of champagne, I was 9 years old and it was New Years. I’ve loved it ever since.

Christmas Eve at my grandmother’s house when I was 14. Tried to keep it together because I wasn’t supposed to be drinking, but on the five minute ride home I threw up out the window.

I needed tea for my tea party. So I got a bottle of bubbly tea from the fridge, easily accessible for 4 year old hands. Went well with animal crackers.

The first time I had champagne was when I was 21, at my best friend’s 21st birthday. Her dad is a head chef and we had a fancy sit-down dinner at this four-star restaurant. For some reason, I thought champagne was supposed to be sweet. Maybe it was something I had eaten before the sip, but it was really bitter and I’ve never really had a desire to drink it again. However, I’m open to having another tasting experience.

Shoot, my first time? I’ve had too much champagne over the years to remember that. But one of my most memorable was New Year’s Eve back around 1997 or so. We picked up a bottle of Nicolas Feuillatte from our local joint. When midnight struck, we poured our glasses, only to discover it was brut rosé. We had a prejuidice against pink chamapgne back then, but it was quickly dispelled with the first sip. Veuve will always have a soft spot in our hearts, but sometimes you gotta think pink!

my first sip of champagne was when i was 14 (and a half). i was with my family at a cousin’s wedding. my dad gave me a sip of his champagne and i love it so much but i was obviously too young to have one of my own. instead, i went around to all of my family members (and anyone else there i knew) and asked for a sip “just to taste!” By the end of the night i was definitely feeling it and dancing like a maniac! i didn’t get a hangover though, that came a few years later… it was a great introduction to a great drink though, and a wedding i’ll never forget…although i definitely don’t remember them cutting the cake…hmm.

My first glass of champagne was apart of a friend’s New Years house party. As champagne is a customary ritual for New Years, my friends had purchase a bottle to pop at midnight. After popping the bubbly brew, I can’t say I vividly remember much anything else afterwards… except I spent some time in the bathroom.. I awoke the next morning with my very first hangover! So up until that night I had only heard stories of throbbing headaches and partial dizziness and now I had finally experienced THE HANGOVER!—which at the time I thought was kind of cool because it was my first one hahaha~~

Hey! I never noticed that my first champagne experience coincided with my first hangover… I should make a note about that..

i’ve sipped some lovelies in my life, but the first time i recall a proper champers i was bartending (underage) in south florida, serving ladies who lunch. after a particularily soul-crushing shift among the manicured succubi…their rolling eyes and disingenuous conversation…i felt entitled to a bottle or three and my fabulous manager agreed with me (eventually), so we shut the bar and went back to his place for some sophisticated moet and juvenile humour on adult swim…it was perfect.

It was summertime, I was with the love of my life and my best friend, we were on a boat, in the middle of an alpine lake. We had a bottle of champagne, and a bottle of blood-orange juice. we mixed mimosas in our mouths, no glasses, just the clink of the glass bottles on our teeth…
Amazing.

i had a house party at my aunts house (which i was looking after at the time) to celebrate my 17th birthday, and my good friend had bought me a bottle of it. i drank the whole bottle danced about and ended up falling asleep on the sofa. when i woke up at about 5am i found masses of people layered over the floors, and the housewas a mess. people had put beer in the fish tank (killing all the fish). someone also decided to get a matress from a bed and it looked like they were going down the stairs on it. and worse of all someone deceided to have a bbq outside and you could see the remains of my aunts plants. What can i say must have been a good party?

2 of my close friends and I have birthdays within a week of each other, so we always have a huge triple birthday bash. One year we decided to do something totally decadent and so we ordered a bottle of ‘98 Dom at the bar we were having the party at. We sipped the whole bottle and shared some with our awestruck bartender. It was pretty awesome.

I was in Germany (im brazilian) visiting a friend, and it was my last night there so we decided to throw a little party with 4 people, and we started drinking some vodka - but that bottle was almost empty - so we got a bottle of champagne and went outside the house, to a park nearby. It was snowing, and two of the people decided to go on a walk, so me and the other girl had that giant bottle of champagne to ourselves. We were just so high we decided to go swiming in a lake with giant pieces of ice floating. We took our shoes off and stated walking into the lake - with the bottle almost empty on our hands - when our friends saw us from far. When they got there we were laughin so loud because we couldnt feel our feet and it was so hard to walk back to the “shore”… Finally one guy went into the lake to get us out. Weird and dangerous experience, but great great fun ;)

In 1999 here in Glasgow, I attended a Vivienne Westwood fashion show which was part of a charitable event. This was where I had my first champagne (which also happened to be my first underage drink) and I had the pleasure of drinking this with Vivienne Westwood herself! Can’t get any better than that! :D x

The first time I had champagne is actually the first time I got drunk. At a family New Year’s party, I must have been about thirteen, I just fell asleep so there was no harm done.

I was 8 years old, it was New Years Eve and my Dad brought home a bottle of Dom Perignon. I can safely say it was the only reason that I stayed up until midnight.

First time…new year’s eve, along with several other assorted drinks, sad to say that with so much variety of beverages in my stomach results were less than merry ;)

Pop the bubbly! I love champagne! From the first time it hit my lips when I was 16 at some wedding to now when I enjoy it not only on special occasions but with mimosas during brunch! No more sneaking swigs but taking big gulps of those wonderful little bubbles that sneak up your nose!

It was New Years Eve in the mid-eighties. I was about ten years old and was more excited for my dad to pop the cork on the champagne than watch the ball drop. We, of course, had the non-alcoholic version waiting in the wings. Full of adrenaline, I stayed clear of the trajectory of the bottle. Unfortunately, geometry one upped me and the cork bounced off the wall and hit me in the head. That night, I enjoyed *real* champagne with my Mom and Dad. The other kids were relegated to the sparkling grape juice. Reward is sweet but sometimes it takes a cork to the head to benefit.

I was in college, and thus my friends and I were all poor. A group of friends gathered to play penny poker and after we ran out of wine, we decided to open up the champagne that had been bought for a previous special occasion but never opened.

i had my first champagne when finishing the last exams for my university-entrance diploma. allthough most of the liquid just was sprayed around, the very first sip was an absolute delightful moment.

Ok, my first bottle of champagne or sip was in the wedding of a girl friend. I don´t drank too much, but because was a wedding, i decided drink a little sip. I remember was so sweet, light, and the liquid had a very littles gold scales. Was a nice remember of that champagne that not remember his name, but was so delightful to the palate.

It was in the countryside that her parents had a party, she was allowed to bring a friend and that friend was me. There was dancing, bowling and champagne. Waiters were coming and going… it was free; I was fifteen. I had one, two, maybe three glasses..? Probably one of the best champagnes I ever had… We were young pretending to be old, dancing, drinking and giving our innocence away.

My first glass of Champagne was at the Pommery estate in Reims, France. They have rotating modern art exhibitions inside of the enormous underground cellars. Our French tour guide looked like one of my art history professors and had the most beautiful accent. Here I am running away from the Pommery toward a mountain of shopping carts.
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4428/n10808564333368257649.jpg

My first time with champagne was unsurprisingly on new years. I had a party for me and a few of my friends. We were about 14 or 15 and my parents (mainly my dad) decided to give us all some bubbly. My friend ryan drank his glass before the ball dropped.

We had these noise makers that we all thought sounded like ducks so ryan said that the duck drank it. So my dad being the cool guy gave him some more. Again, ryan drank the champagne. For us kids it was really funny, we weren’t supposed to be drinking ( although we would be anyway). My dad gave him some more champagne and at this point he had been drinking quite a bit for a 14 year old. By the time the ball dropped he was already drunk.

Its a story I still remember and we all reminisce about over 8 years later. “The duck drank it!”

It was 10am, the day of the big day out festival in Sydney and I drank two bottles on champagne before leaving for the festival. Ended up being the most memorable day of my summer!

I was 17 and my band had just finished a set for a local bash. They gave us a bottle of champagne each to last us the rest of the night as a thank you, but being full of youth and hubris, we finished ‘em off right quick. We spent the rest of the evening on the huge lawn out back looking at stars and being silly kids. It’s one of my fondest of memories!

My boyfriend is French and came to visit me in New York for new year’s. He bought along a bunch of Parisian goodies, but decided to save a beautifully wrapped bottle of Veuve Clicquot for last. The way the tiny bubbles fizzed and tickled my lips and senses, the subtle aroma promising an even more exquisite experience as it traveled down my throat, is an experience I will never forget— alongside having my guy to start 2009 with, too, of course. :)

It was in my uncles garage with all my extended family. There just wasn’t enough room anywhere else to fit so many bodies. The car was moved outside while a large table has taken its place. I popped the cork and it flew and hit a kid in the face. There were many glacial glances my way for being cruel and vicious. Needless to say it was a terrible experience.

I was 16, on vacation in France (I live in Holland), and I could buy a magnum (1,5L) of Charles de la Courance champagne. Back in Holland, we invited my 2 best friends to master the bottle. Unbelievable, those bubbles with such finesse, I thought. Anyway, bottomline is: the intoxination you get from champagne is completely different from any other booze. It is much more relaxed and giggly.

And now here we are, me and champagne in a highly erotic entanglement. God, so much i love her!

I was on the roof at a fancy loft on the 4th of July, and everyone was looking fancy. I noticed the fancy bottle being popped open and knew I must taste that fanciness. I acquired a glass and as the fireworks shot up into the sky I sipped my first fancy champagne. Hence the heavy use of fancy in this paragraph I had discovered what fancy was!

i love champagne! my first time was a cheap bottle split with my best friend and roommate at the time when i was 20 years old. ive been hooked ever since.

went on a New Year’s cruise w my family when I was 14 or 15…everyone on the ship celebrated NYE on the main deck, the ship being all decorated for the occasion. lights everywhere, live bands, dancing and great fun. toasted to the new year with a bottle of champagne between myself and my sister (plus mom and dad had some for themselves)…cant remember what kind it was but it was great! brings back good memories. cheers!

The Millennium - because you just have to..even though I was only 11.
The next time was my mum and dad’s wedding. They got married in Italy and it was truely perfect. In the evening we went to a gorgeous restaurant - we ordered Champagne.. As the champagne was consumed, I felt as though it resembled their perfect day. From the apprehension of it popping open to the exciting fizz that overflows to that first taste leaving you with a feeling of such content. Before finally sitting back and enjoying the rest and never wanting it to end.

I was around 17 @ my dads party and a friend bought a bottle of champagne. I opened the bottle to have a small drink… I didn’t even liked it. hehe. Latter in my life I got the taste of it though.

My first experience with champagne was when my family friends brought me with them on a trip to Normandy; I was 14. We spent the entire day sunning on the beach before wandering the cobbled streets to find a small bistro for dinner. With the steak and the fish came a bottle of champagne - I still remember drinking that first glass slowly, loving the bubbles and the fruit on the finish.

The first time I had champagne was at my aunt’s wedding. The buzz lasted about as long as the marriage.

My first taste of champagne was at my cousin’s wedding when I was 16 years old.

The first sip of champagne was awkward, it didn’t taste like alcohol at all. I have a feeling that I had it around 10 or 12 years old. It was New Years, my parents served it so I just not knowingly got tipsy the whole night through.

The first time I tasted champagne was when my younger sister graduated college. We just got back from a ridiculously boring (but thankfully short) ceremony. My brother and I were giggling like idiots throughout the entire event, you would have thought we pregamed it. Frankly, it might have been more interesting drunk. When we got home my parents surprised my sister with the champagne. She was very flattered and my brother and I began to get tipsy. Aside from enjoying the champagne by itself we started making Kir Royales, which are excellent. A Kir Royale is champagne mixed with creme de casis. Afterward we sat at the table. The meal went by and I began to get antsy. When I drink I tend to feel creative but the champagne put me in overdrive. It was almost like the vintners knew about my problem because I found myself making little chairs out of the cages and tables from the corks. The party passed but my chairs are still around. They are proudly displayed in my parent’s home.

I was 13 with a friend. There wasn’t enough vodka or whiskey in his parent’s liquor cabinet so we decided to steal the only bottle of champagne. We were not exactly sure how to manage the pressure of a champagne cork. I wedged the bottle between my legs and applied pressure with my thumbs. My friend stood directly in front of me looking on. The cork shot out of the bottle and smacked him in the eye. We drank the bottle and numbed his pain but he woke up with a black eye which eventually led to us fessing up and getting grounded for what his parents said was irresponsible and inappropriate but we think they were more pissed about the price tag of the bottle we stole.

new years, probably around the age of 13?

A new bride, anxious to impress my in-laws with my sophistication; I accepted a champagne cocktail early Christmas morning. Slept the entire day. Then about 10 years ago my boss poured me a flute of “real” champagne and that was the day I understood why people drink champagne. I consider that occasion to mark the first time I drank champagne.

I’m a non-drinker but I had champagne battered fruit on a cruse. None of us noticed until it burned going down….

In seventh grade, I was asked to be a bridesmaid in my uncle’s wedding. What I didn’t know was that I would be in charge of dealing with the many disasters that plagued the day - a pigeon defecating on my nana’s head, the satin wedding gown falling into a wrinkled heap on the floor, and the mother of the bride vomiting into a plastic bag. But my reward for picking up the pieces was my very first glass of champagne….

It wasn’t a sip! It was a whole bottle!!! New years day in Italy… and afterwards everything was bloody pleasant :)

College. Frat party. CHEAP sparkling wine. Nuff said.

… they would only serve me soda at the table because I was only 13 years old. However, after everyone had their first glass, the spirit of the visiting Americans in Paris had changed and I had my very first glass…at the Moulin Rouge in Paris at the stroke of midnight, New Year’s Eve.

1st Time? Champagne?
I was with my 1st boyfriend, Johnny Lee Hooker playing I’m in the Mood, in the background, we “tinked” glasses & giggled like fiends the rest of the evening…. that is all…

i live in this small city not far from venice in italy, called padua and there was a champagne-bar in which you could eat sme specialties like focaccia while sipping champagne.. when i went there for the first time everything was so magic and champagne tasted so good (though i prefer prosecco instead).. too bad a week after it closed! i hope that was not my fault! :D

2003 - New Years on the beach. Underage. Bliss.

I believe it was on my 18th birthday (around New Years) and my mom bought me a bottle to celebrate, and we ended up drinking it and watching the NYC ball drop on tv together. Good times ;)

Wow, they sure know how to Party at Veuve Cliquot!
Great ideas, beautiful!!

It was Christmas day of ninth grade, so I guess that makes me 15. My family and my best friend’s family have a tradition in which every Christmas we get together at their house for brunch to celebrate Jewish style. She’s half&half, so we always went to their place to admire the tree and gingerbread house and politically incorrect Christmas cookies (reindeer with balls? jesus smoking a joint?). Her parents offered me a mimosa, which I accepted after glancing to my mother for approval. It tasted more or less how I expected, having had sips of my parents’ wine at dinner before. I had two more glasses and stuffed my face.

I had my first champagne experience (or so I thought) was when I was 14. A friend brought a bottle and we started drinking one glass after another…believing that the bubbles were getting so into our heads we started acting like two ridiculous 14 year old drunks. My mother discovered the bottle the next day, thinking that I would get yelled at she asked “aren’t you guys a bit too old for Piccolo?”. Piccolo is a kids “champagne” that is given to children in Poland for their non alcoholic parties so they feel a bit more grown up without the percentage….

my first time, with champagne, would have been during a family trip to Paris in August of 2001 at a fancy burlesque restaurant awkwardly enough..

my first time with champagne involved a house of especially spoiled/monied international exchange students who coincidentally bought a few bottles of Veuve Clicquot to celebrate a fellow student’s birthday.

I was 21, and had a plans to woo a beautiful girl i had met by chance at my work and enjoyed a great night out at a local club. I was to venture up to her neck of the woods for romantic picnic equipped with Veuve Clicquot , and at the last second she cancelled!
About 6 months passed and I was saving the tasty bubbly for something special…that day came. I had been working for 2 years on my design portfolio on acceptance into the Art Center College of Design, On February 19th 2007 I received my Acceptance packet, my family and I had moved into a new home…a perfect morning to experience the zest of Veuve Clicquot…A toast to success and a toast to the future! You were always meant to be enjoyed with the ones you love.

My parents were a bit lax on this sort of thing, and it was 2000 after all, so I had my first sip when I was twelve on new years eve. In fact I ended up having two half-glasses though I didn’t like the taste much. In the end, I mostly had a second glass just because I was excited about the fact that I was allowed to drink some and act like an adult. Alcohol never took root in me though and I’ve only had one glass of champagne since at a following new years eve, and ever since I’ve not touched the stuff. Odd I suppose, but I was just never drawn to drinking the way the rest of the world seems to be.

i had my first sip of the bubbly back when i was still in high school. my friends and i each had a bottle and they were gone in about an hour. i don’t remember much except the intense hangover i had the following morning. i was told it was an epic night.

I was 17 and new years eve was turning into a bust, no liquor anywhere in sight, after party hopping and scoring a buyer we finally got one bottle of jack and a bottle of asti, between four of us. Not what we had planned but you have to work with what you got sometimes. Anyways we leave a party and on the way to another party we stop one of our friends parents house (they weren’t home) because we were in the neighborhood and she had to watch the ball drop.

Excited to crack open the bottle of jack and start our evening finally we get out of the car and pshhhhhh my friend drops the unopened bottle of jack on the stoop. we quickly clean it up and mourn our loss of our good friend jack by popping open the bottle of bubbly and proceed to watch the ball drop while passing around our lone bottle of champagne.

The evening turned out to not be a total loss though… the girls house we stopped by almost 10 years ago is now my wife.

it was in my beautiful paradise of Bermuda. yacht parties and long warm nights… champagne and i became summer lovers

I tried champagne for the first time ever at Eastern Market (a large outdoor farmer’s market) in Detroit, Mi a couple years ago during the week of Christmas. The stores were completely full of holiday feasters buying food and such. It snowed all morning.

The first time I had champagne was a greedy sip during a wedding banquet. I was 16 at the time, and had just got my driver’s license. I think I had some Korbel or something. Anyways, that first splash was amazing, all bubbly and beautiful. Shame that I got a ticket later that night for driving my intoxicated mother back home from that wedding.

The first time I’ve tasted the bubbly was during New Years 2001. I was working at a restaurant and there was a special complimentary champagne toast at midnight. Before the countdown, all the servers started popping as many bottles as possible, and chugging at the same time. At 12:10 I was completely gone! What a way to ring in the new years!!!

I bought a bottle for my friend for her college graduation. Some of the good stuff. One sip and an obsession was born.

The first time i drank champagne was at a wedding, at that wedding i was performing magic. Lets just say i drank a little to much and that magic i performed was alot more impressive than usual! Every one loved it and lets end with saying that the champagne made the night much more magical for everyone.

‘Bitchy Kiss’ was what the bartender called it, when he served me and 3 other friends the champagne.
Mind you, this was after 10 straight shots of ‘sex on the beach and Tequila.
So my memory isn’t exactly crystal clear.

We were celebrating New Year’s eve at New Asia Bar, this awesome club at the top of Swissotel in Singapore.
The next 6-8 hrs were a blur of fun, drinks and MORE fun and Drinks.

And that’s my first experience with sipping champagne.

Cheers to good times and great friends!

I lucked into a trip to France when I was sixteen— painted a barn in exchange for the ticket, stayed with an exchange student I’d befriended at my school. The family took me on a road trip through the south of France to reach Villefranche-sur-mer (near Nice). At dinner that night they served salad, Apricot clafoutis, and the most amazing Champagne. I’d avoided wine for most of the trip because I was afraid I would get tipsy and embarrass myself. I was tipsy after the champagne, but not at all embarrassed.

my first time drinking champagne was newyears 2000 when i was 12. My uncle charles gave me my first sip of the cheap champagne; it sparked my tasted buds and put a twinkle in my eye.

That night i secretly creeped around under the tables at the new years party drinking everyones champagne. After my 5th glass i grabbed a champagne bottle and quickly drank the little remains on the front pourch of my uncles house. Soon after i passed out on the door step and woke up next morning on my moms couch not knowing how i got there.

After that first experience, i fell for that bubbling baby called champagne. My time flying over seas champagne was my drink of choice to celebrate my first time in germany.. Maybe i should meantion it was dec 2008/ 2009 new years day. hehehe.

new years and champagne go together like jesus raptor and snacks :)

Love you notcot!!

As the lights of the city were dimming, the new year had taken a dive, my time was desperately leaning on my last memory of my first love. Thinking it could very well might be the first and the last. I sat in the park looking up at the sky, when a clochard sat on the other end of the park bench. Look at me and asked me what was I doing at my age in the middle of the night instead of being at home with my family. I told him I got stood up. I told him I could leave (I knew he went there to sleep some nights) if he so desired.

He took out from a bundle a half bottle of champagne wrapped in a paper bag; and asked me if I would have a drink with him. He told me about his family, the life he led, the beautiful children that have grown up and live in the big city. How he lives every day remembering, while marveling on just watching the world go by. Sure there have been many injustices; but, him being able to escape living and on his two legs. That made him wish and wait for better days, “sooner or later that train has to pull in”.

My problems did not leave, but rather my perspective slanted me into believing that one they that train comes by for everyone. There will be better times, they go by fast like the train but if we are lucky we might get to stay in the car where they serve champagne and I can remember everything is but transitory.

The first time I had champagne was last year. I saw my mom pour Coke into a regular plastic cup so I thought that it was safe to drink since its soda. So when my mom was putting the bottle back, I’d thought I would be sneaky and steal a sip of her soda. Tasting what I thought to be soda was actually a mixture of champagne and soda and when to the sink to spit it out. I was gagging and coughing it all up. I am a minor and well… it tasted horrible. My mom saw and went over and smacked me in the head. She was like that’s not coke! She was really mad and lectured me.I found a fancy bottle of champagne under the table and figured it all out. I might never ever drink again.

My first (mis)adventure with the bubbly was at my sixteenth birthday party (the unofficial one, no need for parents to be involved). My dude at the time threw together a great toga party at the house of a friend whoes parents were out of town and invited everyone we knew. Amoungst the many great ideas we had that night, and there were MANY, we decided it would be just dandy to play beer pong with bottles of champagne. So, there I stand, in my (very fashionable) toga in my five feet two inch one hundred and ten pound Irish glory with a bottle of Champagne that was almost as big as I was, praying like hell I had the aim on a sniper. Two bottles and a playoff game later, we were running through the horrendusly huge garden of the family plantation. Looking back, it was a mix of ‘Marie Antionette’ party scene and ‘Trainspotting’, well, the whole movie.

Needless to say, I won that night, and many, MANY more great adventures insued, but of all the wonderful (mis)adventures I have had with the bubbly, that is forever etched ‘pon my heart.

My first real experience with Champagne came when I was 19 years old and spending a summer in Sevilla, Spain. They have a typical summer drink there known as “Agua de Sevilla”, it is made with pineapple juice, Champagne and various other liquors (Triple Sec, Whiskey, Cognac?-I’m not completely sure to tell you the truth). The genius of this drink is that it is finished off with whipped cream. So it is a fizzy, creamy powerhouse of delight. There is a famous Flamenco bar in Sevilla, La Carboneria, that used to serve Agua de Sevilla by the pitcher. I remember going out with my friends each night, and being lifted up on an rich, efferfescent cloud of happiness; watching the soulful performances of southern Spain’s greatest art and drinking its finest mood altering concoction. Americans could definitely use more champagne in our lives, more celebration, more art and more peace.

My first taste of champagne was at a new year’s eve party, 2005. It was at a guy’s house that I was dating. After the champagne I was hoping for a hug or something from him. Nope, nothing. Had some more champagne and fun with my friends instead!