Blida: The champagne glass of the people

This is a scene that only happens in the French Champagne region. I’m at my nephew’s school fair, eating fries and sausage on a paper plate, with a glass of champagne. The bottle cost less than €20 (£17) and is set on every biergarten table. Nobody pays it that much attention, makes a fuss or a grand discourse when a new one pops open. All the prestige and ritual that usually surrounds the uncorking of the luxurious sparkling wine has vanished. That feeling of normality is reinforced by the glass choice: a blida. Small, stackable and almost unbreakable, the blida holds 80ml of liquid, compared to 125ml for a flute or a coupe, allowing more glasses to be filled from a single bottle.

“It’s a simple rustic glass,” says Sébastien Boever, oenologist and co-owner of Champagne Boever A&S, in the prestigious montagne de Reims. “Its image is a little less flashy than a flute, it has a friendly and festive feel, which is why you see it at village and school fairs.” 

This glass wasn’t originally created to have champagne poured in though. The name itself shares its story: during the French colonisation of Algeria, in the early 20th century, the glass was manufactured in Reims and exported to Blida, where it was used to drink the local mint tea. Then, the Algerian war for independence happened in 1954 and exportations plummeted. Another use had to be found for the blida and champagne was the answer. “It’s a winemaker’s glass,” Sébastien says. “It’s still being used during the harvest, when break time comes around the blidas come out.”