Proceedings

EPJ Special Topics - The indiscretions of a champagne bubble paparazzi

The physics and chemistry behind the fizz in bubbly.

The innermost secrets of champagne bubbles have just been unveiled in the Springer journal EPJ ST. This fascinating work is the brainchild of Gérard Liger-Belair, a scientist tackling champagne bubbles from both a physics and a chemistry perspective. Based at the University of Reims, in the heart of the region that gave champagne its name, the author is appropriately affiliated with the ‘effervescence team of the molecular and atmospheric spectrometry group’ and the ‘oenology and applied chemistry’ laboratory.

To understand what appears to be a harmless phenomenon such as the fizz in champagne, the author studied the role of the carbon dioxide (CO2) throughout its journey from the bottle to the glass. Precisely, Liger-Belair focused on the second fermentation stage, resulting in the CO2 dissolution into the wine – aided by the addition of yeast and sugar before sealing each champagne bottle – to the stage where the gas escapes through tiny bubbles popping on the surface of the wine in the glass.

Armed with a high-speed camera, the author produced a series of visually appealing close-up snapshots of the hidden life of these bubbles at every stage of their short existence to analyse the forces at play. He first explained the process underlying their birth through a process called nucleation, triggered by the tiny impurities inside the champagne glass. He then followed their rise and attributed their extinction when they burst on the surface of the liquid in the glass to the cohesive forces between molecules of the liquid called surface tension.

Understanding the source of fizz provides clues on how to fine tune champagne production. For example, the bubble size can be reduced by a factor that can be calculated by taking into account fermentation sugar levels. However, the method remains fundamentally the same as the one developed by the 17th century Benedictine monk Dom Pierre Pérignon.

The Physics behind the Fizz in Champagne and Sparkling Wines
G. Liger-Belair, Eur. Phys. J. Special topics 201 1–88 (2012), DOI: 10.1140/epjst/e2012-01528-0

This was our first experience of publishing with EPJ Web of Conferences. We contacted the publisher in the middle of September, just one month prior to the Conference, but everything went through smoothly. We have had published MNPS Proceedings with different publishers in the past, and would like to tell that the EPJ Web of Conferences team was probably the best, very quick, helpful and interactive. Typically, we were getting responses from EPJ Web of Conferences team within less than an hour and have had help at every production stage.
We are very thankful to Solange Guenot, Web of Conferences Publishing Editor, and Isabelle Houlbert, Web of Conferences Production Editor, for their support. These ladies are top-level professionals, who made a great contribution to the success of this issue. We are fully satisfied with the publication of the Conference Proceedings and are looking forward to further cooperation. The publication was very fast, easy and of high quality. My colleagues and I strongly recommend EPJ Web of Conferences to anyone, who is interested in quick high-quality publication of conference proceedings.

On behalf of the Organizing and Program Committees and Editorial Team of MNPS-2019, Dr. Alexey B. Nadykto, Moscow State Technological University “STANKIN”, Moscow, Russia. EPJ Web of Conferences vol. 224 (2019)

ISSN: 2100-014X (Electronic Edition)

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