Mad-Maddy’s StompFest

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Holly Madison stomps grapes with a Lucille Ball look-alike at the unveiling of Beaujolais Nouveau at the Paris on Nov. 18, 2009.
Photo: Scott Harrison/Retna/www.harrisonphotos.com

Holly Madison isn’t afraid to get her feet wet.

The Peepshow starlet drenched her feet, calves and knees yesterday during an event celebrating Beaujolais Nouveau at Paris.

The photo op was orchestrated to kick off the annual Georges DuBoeuf Beaujolais Nouveau festival, which continues at Paris through Sunday.

Ever the good sport, Madison donned a kitchy dress for the event and sloshed around in a vat of colored water and grapes.

“I had a really cute outfit they made me, it was kind of a sexy version of a French peasant girl country outfit,” she said. “I stomped grapes and tried the wine and it was fun.”

The scene was very much Girls Next Door meets I Love Lucy: A Lucile Ball impersonator joined Madison in the sea of grapes and food coloring to reenact a classic “I Love Lucy” scene.

The scene (which is available on YouTube) involves a vacationing Lucy who winds up at an Italian vineyard, unable to speak the language, and in a vat of grapes.

Unlike Ball’s character on the black-and-white small screen, however, Madison was able to speak the language on Wednesday afternoon.

Or at least some of it.

The 29-year-old is trying to learn French and has been working with a private tutor since May.

“I mostly read in French,” she said.

She admitted, “I’m really bad at speaking it,” and noted, “It’s hard to learn a language when you’re older.”

Still, she said studying the so-called language of love helps her stay sane while working in a topless revue in Las Vegas.

“I need to keep my brain working or it will die,” she said. “And I’ve always been interested in learning a second language.”

“I want to raise my kids bilingual when I have them,” she added – though that is likely a while off yet.

The reality TV-loving star said she is unsure when she will start her family.

Holly Madison-Beaujolais Nouveau

“I have to find a sperm donor first,” she joked.

Madison has previously expressed interest in having children, and underwent unsuccessful invitro therapy with ex-boyfriend, Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner, prior to their break-up last year.

However, the blonde beauty told the Las Vegas Sun in September that any possible baby plans have been put on hold.

“I’d look really ugly in Peepshow if I was pregnant,” she said.

The comments came a day after she attended the baby shower for her very-pregnant former Girls Next Door co-star, Kendra Wilkinson.

So it looks like Madison has time to perfect her French language skills – and that might not be a bad thing.

She wasn’t too sure what “Beaujolais Nouveau” meant, and was unable to do the translation to uncover the meaning of the annual vinophile holiday.

“It means new beautiful something,” she figured.

(“Beaujolais Nouveau” simply means “new Beaujolais” – Beaujolais being the region of France where the grapes for the namesake wine are grown.)

“I don’t know what that means, I don’t know what ‘jolais’ means, Beaujolais,” Madison said, concluding, “I don’t know what it would translate to.”

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Beaujolais Nouveau events at Paris

Beaujolais Nouveau wine is made using the first harvest of grapes of the season, and the juice of the winemakers’ labor isn’t released each year until the third week of November.

While Madison might not know what it means, she knows what it tastes like – and she likes it, too.

“I’m gong to get a bottle of it for Thanksgiving because they say it’s the ultimate Thanksgiving wine,” she said, reciting Wednesday’s talking points over the phone earlier this afternoon.

“Because of the time of year it’s harvested and because of the fruity flavors it goes really well with Thanksgiving stuff,” she said, sounding rather convincing.

Madison will spend Thanksgiving with one of her Vegas-based girlfriends’ families and is off the hook in terms of stuffing the turkey or preparing a casserole.

“They love to cook and they want to be good hosts,” she said, and her hosts have told her not to bother bringing anything.

But, ever the polite crowd pleaser, Madison knows better than to show up empty-handed.

“I have to bring something,” she said. “I mean, c’mon!”

Still, Madison won’t be hitting the bottle all that hard.

“I like wine but I don’t like to drink a lot of it because it makes me cranky,” the always-smiley, ever-perky Bo Peep said.

It makes me cranky, it really does,” she said, rather unconvincingly this time around.

“The other day we were shooting my show and we were shooting a pool scene so I thought, ‘I’m going to order a daiquiri, it looks picturesque in the scene by the pool,’ and I drank such a tiny portion of it I didn’t think I would be effected by it at all, but I was, so … I had to go to my next scene, which was a dance rehearsal, half drunk,” she lamented. “I’m such a lightweight.”

“I’m just over being drunk,” she concluded. “Sometimes if I need to wind down after a show I’ll have one, but that’s it. I don’t like getting drunk.”

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Melissa Arseniuk

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