Glass act: the story of the champagne coupe

Celebrating the charm of the champagne coupe, the classiest glass of them all

A waiter pours champagne into a tower of glasses to celebrate the opening of a new Casino at the Ritz Hotel, London, in 1978
A waiter pours champagne into a tower of glasses to celebrate the opening of a new Casino at the Ritz Hotel, London, in 1978
(Image credit: Evening Standard / Getty Images)

Christmas creates conundrums. Tree? Norway spruce or Nordmann fir? Turkey or goose? Presents before lunch... or after? And breakfast champagne? To be served in a high and slender flute or a shallow and chic coupe?

The oenophile's choice? Une flûte à champagne – tall and tapered, either with a conical base or straight-sided with an inward taper – which was first manufactured in the mid 1600s by English glassmaker George Ravenscroft (the Brits, of course, being by then the world's biggest consumers of champers), its slender form minimising the oxygen-to-wine ratio by reducing the surface area where carbonisation can disperse, enhancing both aroma and taste.

The coupe's origin story is much naughtier, sexier and sillier – the shallow, mammary jatte-téton (breast bowl) shape said to be modelled on, variously, the petite breasts of historically significant women including the mythical Helen of Troy, Marie-Antoinette (born 1755) or even keen Moët imbiber Madame de Pompadour (born 1721).

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Alas, this is probably fanciful glassware tattle; la coupe more likely derived from the mastos cup, a breast-shaped drinking cup used by the Greeks. The first visual record of champagne consumption, Jean-François de Troy's 1735 painting Le Déjeuner d'huîtres, depicts a riotous scene of a post-hunt bacchanal, the men drinking champagne from small, bowl-shaped glasses.

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Simon Mills is Life & Times Editor of The Blend