Valentine’s Day and champagne go together like two, starry-eyed lovers strolling hand-in-hand through the park. Champagne is a celebratory drink that evokes such exuberance, people who ordinarily don’t drink champagne pop the cork and imbibe on sweethearts’ day. The history of Valentine’s Day, like most folklore, has varied origins. The most popular version is that the Roman Emperor Claudius II forbid men from marrying as he thought it made them bad soldiers. Believing this unfair, a third-century priest named Valentine ignored the ban and continued to arrange marriages. As a result, he was tossed in prison, where allegedly he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter. Unfortunately, in this version the lovers did not live happily ever after.
