Stand Up for Champagne

If you're like me, you really like to watch TV and get massages. But if you're like other people, you are looking for small but meaningful ways to make this world a better place. Maybe one of your New Year's resolutions was to get more involved with a cause you believe in--whether it be to make a financial contribution, volunteer your time, or just read up on an issue important to you and discuss it with your friends, hoping to start a grass roots movement.

And there are many worthy causes. We have to be better at supporting our veterans. The economy is taking a toll on services available to the homeless. The food pantries in many soup kitchens have been sparse.  There is child abuse and neglect and our civil liberties are threatened.

But when I sat down to read my weekly issue of the New Yorker, I could not avert my eyes from an advertisement that warned me of the latest outrage against our values and way of life:


It's true.

Through a legal loophole, devised by Satan himself, American wine makers can now call their sparkling wine Champagne, even though it does not come from the Champagne region in France. I know.  It took me a while to calm down after I read that, too.

I visited the website that encouraged me to sign the petition protesting this anti-Champagnism.  I admit that I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had a Champagne hotline, although their response time to my plea of "I'm out of champagne, and also rubbing alcohol!!"  has been disappointing.  They also offered Champagne Kits, asking "Does your wine club need champagne?" Does it ever!  My wine club (membership: 1) could really use some champagne!

But overall, I feel like the advertisement calling attention to their plight could be better.  The "might be legal but it isn't fair" tagline is so fucking whiny, it makes you want to hit the gin instead of the bubbly. (WAIT A MINUTE:  is it fair to use the term bubbly?)  So, in the spirit of promoting international peace, I wanted to come up with a more effective tagline.

Here are my suggestions:

1. If you've been drinking American "champagne", you've been poisoned.

2. Champagne comes only from France.  I dare you not to drink it. I dare you.  (This would involve a Robert Ulrch celebrity endorsement, with a miniature bottle of champagne placed on his shoulder)

3. Champagne from France: Because you're not a common lush. (slight danger of offending common lushes. Because we can be sensitive.)

Please add your own. And to encourage you to submit yours in comments, I will select the catchiest and drink a glass of champagne (from France!) in that person's honor. I know. The things that I do for you.

Cheers!