My cousin Christian, who wields a mean saber, has decapitated some 200 bottles of bubbly. Done correctly, the procedure involves impressive flourishes, as well as dubious historical stories of galloping Cossacks, and jokes about performing a bris. Most important, though, is that the bottle be Champagne.
Champagne has more bubbles than other sparkling wine. According to Bollinger Champagne fizzicist Tom Stevenson, around 250 million little pearls of CO2. When the top is whacked off, bubble pressure shoots both neck and cork across the room, hopefully not into someone’s soup or cleavage, although Christian says that happens. Too little pressure and you risk glass dropping into the bottle. Higher pressure also dictates thicker bottle glass, which breaks off more cleanly than thinner stuff. So after a few desultory attempts on foreign bottles, he will only wield the sword with real Champagne.
That’s also why it’s a good thing that in December, 2000, a British couple had bottles of Bollinger, not some stateside crud, in their drinks refrigerator when a fire broke out. According to Decanter magazine, they were woken by the sound of popping corks and came downstairs to find their fridge aflame. But heat was bursting the corks out of the bottles inside and since carbon dioxide starves fire of oxygen, the froth of Champagne doused the flames.
While we all love Champagne for its fire retardant properties, it’s also just plain fun. It makes you feel good, thanks to festive associations as well as chemistry: it increases testosterone, raises blood alcohol faster and keeps you more buoyant, longer.
Besides, bubbles are simply cool. Sparkling wine is the grownup version of Pop Rocks. And pops for the same reason: CO2, yearning to be free. They add it to the candy at 600 pounds per square inch when it’s molten. It forms tiny, high-pressure bubbles that burst later when the little pellets melt in your mouth.
Getting the bubbles into Champagne is a little harder. They start with austere, highly acidic, still wine and blend up to 70 different batches to make the perfect cuvée. This is infused with yeast and sugar and put into super-strong bottles which are sealed with a bottle cap and put down to rest. A second fermentation takes place inside the bottle, producing CO2, and hence, bubbles. This takes about a month, but the bottles wait another two to four years, deriving complexity from the yeast, which forms a gunky residue that has to be removed. This is done in three steps:
1. Riddling: bottles go onto a special rack at a slightly neck-down angle. Every day, for 12 weeks, each one is picked up, given a shake to loosen residue and rotated 1/8 of a turn. The angle is gradually increased until all the yeast gathers in the neck. There are machines for this, but most is still done by hand in traditional wineries where carpel tunnel syndrome runs rampant.
2. Dégorgement: the neck is plunged into a subfreezing bath and then the cap is removed. Built-up pressure from carbon dioxide shoots out a plug of frozen sediment. You must do this quickly and carefully if you don’t want to lose pressure, wine or an eye.
3. Dosage: an elixir of sugar, wine, and sometimes brandy is added, determining the sweetness and style of the resulting Champagne. Then the bottle is quickly corked and ages a few months more before going to market.
Even without a sword, there’s danger in opening a bottle of Champagne. The pressure inside is three times as much as in car tires. The higher the altitude, the more the bubbles yearn to be free. Wrap a napkin around the bottle, point it away from anything of value, and gently turn the bottle as you ease out the cork. The quieter the pop, the less you’ll spill.
Most Champagne is made to be drunk quickly, not aged. Refrigerate what you don’t finish. Even uncorked, bubbles will be glorious for a few days; the cold keeps them in solution. Don’t wait for romance to open a bottle. Nine out of ten fizzicists recommend you pop that cork tonight!
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