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The Science Behind the Bubbly

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sun Dec 31, 2006 07:14 PM
from the happy-new-years dept.
Science
isabotage3 writes "Here is everything you need to know about champagne in time for New Year's — From how to maximize your bubbles to why bubbles follow certain patterns and then suddenly change, to when the time is right to stop studying your bubbly and drink up."
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  • Too late... (Score:3, Informative)

    by rrohbeck (944847) on Sunday December 31 2006, @07:19PM (#17418684)
    You should have told us an hour ago. :)
    Over 10 C (50 F) at midnight in northern Germany, FWIW. Yeah I know, just one data point.
    • We had rain all morning in Minnesota and it's now snowing and thus ice. We tried to go out to drink some champagne with a friend but turned back less than 3 miles from home after hitting a curb near someone who had jumped the curb and landed in the treeline.

      They were ok and we're safe at home -- no champagne though.
    • We had unseasonably cold weather here in Pittsburgh in September and October. Should we start calling it "the ice age of 2006"?
    • I don't know why we're talking about the weather, but 1C/33F here in Finland. We're still waiting for the winter to start.
    • Well, I always knew America's a year behind the civilized parts of the world. And ATM it's literally true ;-)

  • Because (Score:5, Funny)

    by dj961 (660026) on Sunday December 31 2006, @07:28PM (#17418724) Journal
    If you're reading this, you will be drinking champagne with another human being.

  • Bubble size (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TubeSteak (669689) on Sunday December 31 2006, @07:40PM (#17418784) Journal
    I wonder if this has anything to do with the size of the bubbles.

    I recall reading somewhere that higher quality champagne has smaller bubbles
  • Picked up a couple bottles of Veuve Clicquot for $33 each this morning...
  • Way to post this 14 minutes after New Year's, you insensitive clod! We British invented Time, you ought to bow to our will!

  • Bubbles and cavitation during negative g load (Score:4, Informative)

    by viking80 (697716) on Sunday December 31 2006, @09:19PM (#17419220) Journal
    Happy New Year.

    As divers know, if you reduce the pressure, bubbles will form. An easy way to do this in a glass of champagne, or beer for that matter, is to toast with your good (or not so good) friend by touching the top of his glass with the bottom of yours.

    The champagne in your glass with be compressed on impact, and no bubbles will form. The glass on the bottom will experience an explosive decompression in the liquid, and instantly foam up with little left to drink to the amusement of the whole party except for the unfortunate one.

    This takes very little force if executed correctly: Both glass and liquid are quite stiff. An impact of 10cm/sec will easily cause a g-load of the bottom glass in the range -2g to -4g. This will of course result in negative pressure in the liquid, and bubbles will form instanty. The liquid will soon be back to normal pressure, and many of the bubbles cavitate, causing additional local pressure waves.

    Happy New Year
      • The approximation of incompressible fluid probably holds very well for champaigne. But incompressibility simply means no volume change with pressure change. So you, um, let me think, are correct in your description. I am curious tonight whether this method holds out, however -- it seems that most of the ways to cause, e.g., beer to fizz simply involve mixing more air in (i.e., you need splashing.)
    • No, no, no.
      European champagne is only sparkling white wine unless it's from the Champagne area of France. (Though I understand some European sparkling whites have their own special appelations.)
      American champagne is champagne wherever it's grown. I don't think American champagne even has to contain alcohol.

      • The US Senate never signed the Treaty of Versailles after WWI, which contained among other things the legal basis for naming wines. So as long as an American winery puts its location on the label, it can use champagne as a generic for sparkling wine.

        I, on the other hand, am trying a sparkling rosé this year just to be different. So there!

        • They just suffered thru a damned war and one of the items to that needed to be in the damned treaty was wine naming? Jesus.

          • To keep on a theme, that sparkling rosé that gave its life to make me happy tonight came from Alsace. Now, the bottle is marked as a product of France. So, can we conclude that the Alsace always belonged to France?

            Of course, the answer is no. It's been traded back and forth between France and the Holy Roman Empire/Germany multiple time; with the occasional change of name to Elsass-Lothringen. At the time in question, it had ended up with Germany after the Franco-Prussian War; it then became French

        • We all know politics suck, but COME ON.

          My first thought on reading the parent post was not about champagne, but that, while writing up a treaty to end a fucking war, politicians, and no doubt, lobbyists, had to add language for business considerations...

          Sadly, it appears to be true. Several sites [wikipedia.org] confirm it.

          Given the history here, I am glad the USA didn't sign the treaty. Now Joe-SixPack can buy American "champagne", even if it isn't Champagne.

      • > Though I understand some European sparkling whites have their own special appellations.

        I dunno about the rest of Europe, in Italy the local sparkling whites' producers are very proud of their denominations, those wines get often preferred to champagne even on important occasions, especially in rural environments where wine is more of a religion than a beverage.

        Then, it's all a matter of taste.

    • Re:How about: (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2006, @08:45PM (#17419084)
      that's easy:

      ->
      The science behind the erection

      isabotage3 writes
      "Here is everything you need to know about champagne in time for New Year's -- From how to maximize your erections to why erections follow certain patterns and then suddenly change, to when the time is right to stop studying your erection and drink up."
      -

      I think it would make an interesting article, indeed.
    • You may or may not want to maximum amount of bubbles. If you are not a sparkeling wine connoisseur then you probably dont have an opinion either way. Let me tell you first of all that you wont be bothered by too much but you might be bothered by too little. The only time you will ever find too many bubbles is in aged sparkeling wine. As champagne ages it usually takes on an almost yeasty taste from the fermentation and the CO2 gas increases creating more bubbles. Recently i got to drink a Champagne old

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