As a connotation, as a concept and as a cliché, Champagne is a titillating tipple, entangled in seduction, raveled in sex and wrung out into seven-ounce flutes as a morning-after testimonial.  Therefore, when I developed an instantaneous crush on Champagne Taittinger’s new global spokesperson, it was all part of Dom Perignon’s  game plan from the gitty-up.

Vitalie Taittinger

Apparently, mademoiselle’s genetic double-helixes are all in order, too: She’s a Taittinger (Vitalie, daughter of Tait owner Pierre-Emmanuel), and if you want to your compare your tastes to my own, you can check her out on the red carpet at the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center for the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® this Sunday, Jan. 29.

A Taittinger toast to kick off this silly, self-congratulatory Hollywood lovegasm is a 12-year-old Screen Actors Guild Awards tradition, but this is the first time that the Champagne house will be represented by the heiress apparent; she’ll be hanging around at the show, backstage in the green room and will be popping Taittinger Brut la Francaise corks during the afterglows.

True to her new role as Global Ambassador, she says, “Elegance, beauty, and passion define Champagne Taittinger and make the SAG Awards such a dazzling night. We are thrilled to toast to actors-as their gifted performances have the power to move and inspire, like Champagne,” but she says it in such a hot little French accent that you’ll want to go all Gomez Addams and start kissing her wagina.

(Not a typo, silly! http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wagina)

But Enough of this Childish Nonsense.  Let’s Talk History

Founded on the outskirts of Rheims in 1734, the Taittinger clan did not get involved with the estate until the twentieth century, and so, as a Champagne name, it’s one of newest houses in the region.  It’s also one of Champagne’s smallest (major) producers, responsible for about 5 million  bottles a year compared to, say, 26 million from Moët, owned by the largest luxury corporation in the world, Moët-Hennessy-Louis Vuitton.

Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, whose dead body I'd have to date Vitalie over.

At least MHLV is French.  Gratefully, Taittinger’s courtship, and eventual marriage to a major foreign investment group in 2005 had a happy ending.  Sold to the American hotel company Starwood in 2005, other Champagne houses—along with cooperatives, distributors and customers—quickly realized that the Connecticut-based hospitality group had goals which did not align with Champagne’s venerated brand culture and could result in a major breakdown of the equilibrium of the industry.  The following year, Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger managed to buy the company back.

Referring to a business strategy suited to an estate of Taittinger’s size, Vitalie now says: “Taittinger couldn’t be run [like Moët].  However small, every market is important to us.  When you are a family business, we do the wine but we are supporting it with family spirit. For us it’s very important to meet those who are our friends.”

Friends in high places doesn’t hurt, and hence, the Hollywood face-time that Taittinger receives with its prominent support of the SAG Awards.

And hence, more history:

“Come Quickly, I Am Drinking With The Stars!  Like, There’s Brad Pitt With His Tongue Down Jennifer Aniston’s Throat”

For some reason, snobs of the Hollywood Clusterbleep Trifecta® (the Golden Globes®, the Academy Awards® and the S.A.G®.s) hate the former, believe that the Oscars are overhyped, overproduced anticlimactic, but consider the energy fields at Shrine Exposition Center akin to what the ancient Incans felt at Macchu Picchu.

William Hoehne

About the Oscars, Yahoo’s William Hoehne says, “By the time the Oscars come on you already know who is going to win because each voting branch of the academy has its own guild with a far larger membership then the academy has.”

And as for the Golden Globes, starstruck Toronto Star reporter Ron Salem whines: “They are essentially useless, because it’s like 90 people who vote on it, most of whom aren’t even journalists. I mean more people voted on hall monitor when I was in high school than vote for the Golden Globes…”

Mee-fucking-ow, baby!

On the other hand, The Screen Actors Guild awards are (apparently) revered because they are voted on by actors—all 120,000 members of the guild are eligible to cast ballots, with the nominees coming from about five thousand ‘specially chosen’ dues-payers.

Creed Bratton starred in the shortlived series Dork from Ork.

Not only that, but according to ‘The Office’ actor Creed Bratton, the 12-pound S.A.G statuette, (known as ‘The Actor’) has the hottest bod of all the award figures, and he refers to its ‘buns of bronze’ as ‘inspiring’.

Like Vitalie (who only dates from 1979), and Taittinger (from 1932), The S.A.G. Awards are babes-in-the-woods compared to others in the awards circuit, having been created in 1995 as an accolade to recognize outstanding members.  By contrast, The Golden Globes are 70 years old and the Academy Awards turn 83 this year.

As always, Las Vegas has poked it’s glamorous, glittery, Mephistophelean snout into the mix, offering predictions on potential winners. To give you an idea of what the oddsmakers are prognostocating:

For Best Actor, the current favorite is George Clooney (The Descendants) at 1/3; Best Actress is Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady at 5/8 and Best Picture, The Artist at 2/7.

If you’re a risk taker, go with The Tree of Life at 50/1—keeping in mind that that’s a hell of a lot better than the odds Vegas will give you on me ultimately ending up with Vitalie Taittinger.