If you're planning a romantic evening on Valentine's Day ( à deux, or even, in the anything-goes -noughties that we live in, à trois, à quatre or more ) the chances are that you'll choose champagne to drink
Champagne has been linked to love and romance for centuries. Back in the early 18th century a certain French cardinal, if you please, by the name of de Bernis used imagery of a champagne bottle popping open to make very thinly-veiled erotic suggestions to his would-be mistress the Marquise de Pompadour whose other claim to fame, of course, is that the shape of her breasts served as the model for early champagne glasses – I'm not sure if this is a complement or not, but that's how the legend runs anyway.
They were a saucy lot back at the court of King Louis XV, but in fact the earliest reference to the magical qualities of champagne was by an Englishman called Sir George Etheridge as long ago as 1675, so perhaps we can teach the French a thing or two about the art of seduction after all.















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