Bubble bursts for champagne flavour secret - September 29, 2009
Pop, pop, fizz, fizz -- oh, what a release it is.
Bubbles bursting from a glass of sparkling wine release sweet-smelling chemicals that hover above the liquid to tickle your nose as well as your tongue.
A team led by Gérard Liger-Belair, a chemist at the University of Reims in the Champagne region of France, naturally, analyzed the aerosols in champagne using ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry and discovered an abundance of double-ended, aromatic compounds that both cling to and repel water. These chemicals, called surfactants, are dragged upwards in the airy champagne bubbles and are released when the bubbles pop, the researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study authors argue that the surface of sparkling wine behaves much like the surface of the sea. "By drawing a parallel between the fizz of the ocean and the fizz in Champagne wines, our results closely link bursting bubbles and flavour release — supporting the idea rising and collapsing bubbles act as a continuous lift for aromas in every glass of champagne," Liger-Belair, the author of Uncorked: The Science of Champagne, told the Telegraph.
The New York Times, on the other hand, likens the aromatic uplift to an elevator.
Metaphors and analogies aside, the findings could have real implications for wine connoisseurs. "In the past, we thought that the carbon dioxide in the bubbles just gave the wine an acidic bite and a little tingle on the tongue, but this study shows that it is much more than this," Jamie Goode, founder of The Wine Anorak magazine, told BBC News. "Glasses that encourage more bubbles to come up are going to be better." So next time you crack open a bottle of bubbly, make sure you grab a fluted glass.
The Associated Press remarked that the Hawaiian singer Don Ho was on to something when he sang in his 1966 hit that "tiny bubbles in the wine make me feel happy, make me feel fine". You can watch him croon at the 2005 Pro Bowl in Honolulu, Hawaii, here:
Image by quinn.anya via flickr under Creative Commons
