Bubbly Ballistics: How Temperature Affects Champagne’s Signature Pop

From left, the vapor above the bottlenecks of bottles stored at 6 °C, 12 °C and the deep blue CO2 freezing plume from a bottle stored at 20 °C. (Credit: Equipe Effervescence, Champagne et Applications/URCA) Looking for a new party trick? In a study published in Scientific Reports researchers demonstrated that storing your champagne bottles at different temperatures can change the shape and even the color of the fog plume that’s released after that characteristic “pop.” Ah, the bubbly. Aside from being one of our favorite celebratory beverages, champagne has also been the subject of extensive scientific study – no, really. French scientist and champagne physicist Gérard Liger-Belair studies the conditions behind the taste, tingle and the visible “sparkle” in our flutes. “The heart of champagne lies in the bubbles,” said Liger-Belair in an interview with Phys.org. He also said that in each bottle, there are approximately 10 million bubbles.Not ...