How Do You Open This Unique Champagne Stopper?

Berserkers,

Tonight board member Jay Shampur and I dined at Sash and he brought a Moutard Pere & Fils NV Brut Nature Terroir des Riceys for us to enjoy. Well, we would have enjoyed had anyone been able to open it. Upon removing the foil, the bartender found this unique closure on the bottle:

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Neither Jay nor I, nor the bartender, nor the manager, nor chef Sash himself had ever seen a closure like this and weren’t sure how to open it. We decided not to chance it lest we send a cork flying into expensive barware and spirits or a hapless diner accidentally. I immediately Googled this up but couldn’t find either photos or a video on how to open this up. We even texted board member Mike Grammer in desperation to ask if he had any idea how to deal with this and he didn’t either.

So we turn to you for our salvation. How the heck do we open this thing? Jay apparently has a number of bottles from Moutard and it’s gonna be a crying shame if we can’t open them up to drink them! Anyone here have any experience with these? Help us drink this before I have to change my signature in shame because I couldn’t figure this out:

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That big staple is in an agrafé. Remove it by levering one end off, then the other. I use the flange end of a waiter’s friend.

How hard can this be? Seems obvious to me.

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It’s “une agrafe”.
Remove the metal pin by pulling it from the bottle neck. Remove the cork.
Drink the stuff.

Or use this: Le dégrafeur : un outil de luxe pour champagne de luxe

Edit: Mr. Kaplan beat me to it. Cheers.

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Yes! Sabrage, of course!

Funny enough, I did find the Sabrage video posted by Moutard themselves which only raised everyone’s anxiety. I mean, if their best idea was to SABER the thing open, what chance did we have?

In defense of our manhoods, we did actually think about pulling the metal pins away from the sides of the bottle lip with a waiter’s corkscrew. However, we were seated at the bar and as mentioned we didn’t want to accidentally send the cork flying out into expensive glassware, a spirit bottle on display or even worse a customer. So we decided not to chance it, save the bottle for another occasion and consult with everyone on the board here.

Damn y’all savage.

Wrap the bottle with a bar towel, and pry off one side. I pity you guys if you actually get stuck in a difficult situation neener .

You guys were outsmarted by a staple. Call your law schools and demand immediate, retroactive refunds!

Last time I saw one of these I just used a butter knife to leverage one side past the edge. Not very elegant but it worked.

exactly. Shocked that Berserkers were stymied.

Some of the Giraud Champagnes come with those ‘cages.’ they usually include a little tool to facilitate opening it and a little set of instructions on how to use it to open the bottle. It’s just a small blunt knife-like piece of metal you use to pry the metal away. You can likely use the handle of a small spoon or something to get the same effect. Here’s a picture of the ‘knife’ and the instructions. A butter knife as others noted works as well.
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Not sure why the worry about the cork going flying. Does the cork go flying when you open the cage on a regular closure? No, you still have to pull the cork out.

Whenever I’m opening champagne with others I use the towel method so at worst if it shoots off it’ll get caught in the dish towel.

But if you’re drinking alone?

Thanks for all the responses, gang–the fun ones as well as the how-to explanations.

Tom, if you’re drinking alone, it will inevitably bounce off the nearest wall and put out your eye!

You’re a cyclops?

I was at a dinner where it happened. The cork self jettisoned, flew into the ceiling, and the ensuing shower of wine drenched the bottle owner’s date.

Thankfully my wife and I were on the other side of the large table.

I’ve seen more than a couple corks go as soon as the cage is loosened. Definitely keep a thumb/towel on the cork as soon as you start turning.