To watch an expert sabrage a bottle of champagne is a sight to behold. It takes some skill and practice and can be quite dangerous.
The sabre is sharp and of course the splinters of the bottle can really hurt an amateur who doesn’t know how to hold the bottle or handle the blade.
Sabrage is in the Guinness Book of World Records, Ashrita Furman from the USA who sabred 66 bottles of champagne in one minute.
The record was set as recently as August 2015 and previously stood at 47.
For the greatest number of bottles sabred in one go, the record is 630 and was set in Italy in June last year.
Back home, sabrage is something that happens on special occasions and by someone who knows what they doing.
But if you’re curious about how it’s done, JD Pretorius the Cellar Master at Steenberg Wine Estate showed us how he does it, without getting any glass splinters in your bubbles:
JD Pretorius the Cellar Master at Steenberg Wine Estate does a sabrage - Video by Nathan Adams