We hear about how French parents serve their young children a spoonful of wine in their water at dinner, a civilized tradition that is both ceremonial and meant to encourage responsible drinking later in life. But did you know there is an even more fascinating French ritual: wetting the lips of a newborn with Champagne?
I first learned of this “Champagne baptism” when Rémi Krug of Krug Champagne told me that he, like all Krugs, received “a few drops of Krug on my lips a few hours after birth and before mother’s milk.” Forget playing Mozart to your new arrival; this is the way to prepare baby for a life of good food and wine, not unlike the tradition of christening a new ship for good luck and safe travel.
So with your doctor’s blessing, try offering a Champagne baptism for your own new arrival, or slide a bottle with instructions to new parents-to-be. Make sure to enlist a special-occasion cuvée of Champagne—something on the order of Salon, Roederer Cristal, or Nicolas Feuillatte’s Palmes d’Or—which the father typically opens after his baby’s first cry. He pours a glass for everyone in the room—family, doctor, and nurses—and dips his finger into his glass and whets his baby’s lips with it. Voilà, the little one is now primed for a lifetime of discerning connoisseurship.
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Champagne is the ultimate gift for those done with diapers, too. My friends Adrienne and Patrick recently clued me into a fantastic way of celebrating birthdays that end with a zero: purchase a different special bottle of Champagne for EVERY DECADE OF LIFE. The beauty of this plan is that it ensures at least two different bottles for those entering their twenties and a cornucopia of iconic bubbles for those later in life.
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