How To Keep The Bubbles In Your Bubbly
Posted on: 27 October 2016
Champagne is the one wine that can really make a special occasion sparkle, and there's nothing quite like the sensation of hundreds of tiny bubbles dancing over your tongue as you raise your glass in a toast. But what can you do to keep your fizz fizzy once it's been uncorked? Read on for a few top tips.
Common misconceptions
One famous tip says that placing the handle of a silver spoon into the neck of a champagne bottle will prevent it from losing its fizz. There's no real logic to this idea, and unsurprisingly it doesn't work.
Another popular urban myth is that dropping a single raisin into an opened bottle of bubbly will help to keep it lively. Sadly, this romantic notion is just another old wives' tale and doesn't work.
So now that those misconceptions are dispelled, what does work?
Chill out
One strategy that has been scientifically proven to keep your champers bubbly is to keep it really well-chilled.
When you take delivery of celebration champagne from your wine supplier, the first thing you should do is to put it into the fridge and keep it there until you're ready to serve it. Once the bottle has been opened, put it straight back into the fridge and keep the temperature really low. The carbon dioxide that creates all those delicious bubbles is best-preserved by very low temperatures, hence if you can keep the champers really chilled, it should retain much of its fizz.
Cork it
Re-corking your champers with a wine stopper (available from your wine supplier or from good supermarkets) is another way of preventing those precious bubbles from escaping.
You get what you pay for
The best quality French champagne is undoubtedly more expensive than cheaper impersonators, but it does taste better and it also retains its fizz better too. The reason for this is slightly scientific.
In order for gas to escape from a liquid in which it has been dissolved, the gas molecules must find a tiny speck of matter to gather on until they are sufficiently numerous to form a bubble. The bubbles then float to the top of the liquid and escape. Real champagne is very clear with hardly any specks, and that's why it doesn't go flat like some cheap imitations do.
Forget the popular thoughts about how to keep your champers bubbly. Buy the best French Champagne you can afford, keep it extremely cold and re-cork it once it's been opened. Alternatively, you could eliminate the risk of flat champagne altogether by simply finishing the bottle — responsibly of course!
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