Sublime

Like girls, champagne bottles are put to work in the service of showing off clients’ expenditures. Champagne has been associated with exclusive celebrations for at least a century and associated with elites since court society monopolized its consumption in prerevolutionary Europe.

And there it was, champagne in glorious abundance, filling racks on either side of a narrow gravel pathway: Krug, Roederer, Bollinger, Perrier-Jouët, Clicquot, Dom Pérignon, Taittinger, Ruinart—in bottles, magnums, Jeroboams, Rehoboams, Methuselahs, and even Nebuchadnezzars.