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For Champagne Bubbles, Smaller Is Better
Roland Piquepaille writes "During this holiday season you don't need a special occasion to drink champagne. You can do it everyday, providing you use moderation and common sense. But did you know that champagne taste better when it has tiny bubbles? This is the result of a very serious study published by the American Chemical Society (ACS) and more recently found by the Discovery Channel. And why do you think champagne taste better when carrying smaller bubbles? The answer is pretty obvious. More bubbles are releasing the champagne's flavor and aroma into your mouth. This summary gives you more details. In the mean time, let's all drink champagne!"
And here I thought taste was subjective...
Ermm yeah... my champagne stock is running a little low, you wouldn't mind sending me a crate would you ?
I'll take some everclear and get wasted long before you
It's only Champagne if it's bottled in Champagne, France. Otherwise, it's sparkling wine.
If only there were a way to measure the bubble size before you spend the money on the champagne.
"Other bands play, but Manowar KILLS"
They get you drunk faster.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
... smaller is better.
This is quite possibly the only instance I can think of where this is true.
Cheers. =)
I like free beer better... ;)
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
You know, the things you can learn from Rob Lowe in Wayne's World are truly astounding. Now I'm off to learn cantonese.
"Other bands play, but Manowar KILLS"
Probably because it's a proper name, not just a word?
Wine = a word.
Champagne = a proper name. (i.e. "California roll")
Scientists say champagne taste is all in the bubbles Ah hell, here's a whole pile of Google links Cheers!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Well now, it's about time alcohol technology gets it's due here!
Maybe we need a section for martini recipes.... the original open-source?
How about the pros and cons of RFID tags on Bordeaux bottles?
"warez" for basement absinthe makers?
The revolution will NOT be televised.
If you buy from a good wine shop they should know. Not only do small bubbles enhance the tastes, they result in a creamy (rather than fizzy) texture which is most welcomed by the back of my throat as well as the taste buds, the stomach and the mind.
If you want fizzy wine to be 'a bit different' to get drunk on choose any cheap plonk (Cava fits the bill well and is also tasty), if you want a decent champagne you can get this for ~USD35 at a specialist wine shop or specialist (staffed by those who are passionate about wince, rather than in-between semesters or on remand) wine section of a shopping mall. Non-champagne sparkling wines are also improving in quality (And sometimes are excellent), but don't expect anything too cheap, if it is cheap it'll get you drunk but won't be the amazing experience good champagne can be.
Don't follow the big names either. For example Bollinger only starts getting good well past USD70/bottle, a lower priced bottle can be just as good at much less cost.
karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go.
Measure the weight of your wallet before and after? Price tends to correlate with taste (and thus size of bubbles)
;)
Fortunately there are plenty of cheap alternatives to the over-priced (but excellent) authentic stuff. I like the Hungarian Torley (dry, of course). Almost as good as the low-end 20-25 euro champagnes for a fraction of the price.
Would be nice to have a really good excuse for buying a bottle of Dom Perignon, though
Yes - this is over 20 years old. No doubt next we'll be hearing that oak makes some red wines taste better.
Talk about scraping the bottom of the old wine barrel looking for a story eh?
My guess is a lot of the people who boycotted it only drank it because it was the "right" choice in the first place. Just like most of the people calling them "surrender monkeys" didn't know they lost half a million men in 1916 by NOT surrendering to a sustained German attack at Verdun, more than we've ever lost in all battles including the Civil War. Or that without the help of the Marquis de Lafayette, the French navy and army we'd probably still be singing "God Save The Queen".
Or, while we're at it, that "French" toast was invented by a Mr. French of Albany NY.
Humans. Pfffftt.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
...providing you use moderation...
I moderate this bubble as being overrated.
(Much like this post)
No Norm, those are your safety glasses; I'll wear my own thanks...
does this hold true for beer?
The sediment that is produced after the sugar and yeast have made these little bubble is removed by freezing the neck of the bottle whilst it's upside down and then removing the plug of 'goo'.
That's why Champagne bottles have that large foil top - historically, it was used to cover up the fact that you were being short-changed. Now that we have standards and things, these days, they fill the gap with a similar blend before it's corked.
Who knows why they didn't do that before...
Unfortunately, if there's no American sports team there they effectively don't exist for most Americans. Guys anyway. All those countries trying to get into NATO and the EU have it all wrong, they should be trying to get into the NFL. Might even work for the Palestinians.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
And these days, Champagne is for people who want to look exclusive and upper class, when truth be told, actually they're tosspots ;) Red wine or real ale anyday...
I'm not sure if you're trolling or what but here goes. Champagne is somewhat unique in that it is a fantastic accompanyment to almost any type of food. It goes well with appetizers, the main course, or dessert. You can have it with dinner, at a party, or even for breakfast. There really isn't any other kind of wine that is as versitile as champagne. You mention red wine in your post. There are great reds, to be sure, but if you are going to be eating a delicate whitefish, you would probably not want to be serving a Cabernet Sauvignon with that since the wine will easily overpower the food. In fact just the other day I caught From Russia With Love and Bond realizes that the chap who is dining with him is not an agent but is an assassin instead because he's inexperienced enough to order a red Chianti with fish. That pairing just doesn't go very well. You want to select a beverage that will enhance and compliment the food, not overpower it.
Champagne is well suited for this purpose because of the bubbles. The 'fizz', if you want to call it that, help cleanse the palatte between mouthfuls so that you can get the full taste sensation from the 20th bite as you did with the 1st. You can also achieve this effect by using a toothbrush during a meal and cleansing your tongue that way (try it when you're alone some time!) but that looks rather silly. I'm not at all surprised that smaller bubbles are better (in fact, I thought that was common knowledge) because smaller bubbles means you can get more contact surface area (more bubbles) on the tongue and that should increase the cleansing effect.
Of course, there are different types of champagne (differing levels of sweetness) but for the most part you really can't go wrong with champagne. It goes with everything. Something that most certainly cannot be said of red wine or ale.
GMD
watch this
It's been known since the Dom popped his first couple of corks.
Anyway, be sure to always drink from leaded crystal, which has the right sort of pore structure to support continuous beads of tiny bubbles (given a good wine sample - Korbel ain't never gonna taste good).
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Some countries, e.g. Germany, still have laws prohibiting the use of the term champagne (same thing applies to "cognac", cf. Article 275 of the Treaty of Versailles).
Nowadays, that's hardly more than a weird relict though - think about it: it's not really Kleenex unless its made by Kimberly-Clark. If it's generic it's a just facial tissue product. Same thing...
I don't take advice from a dude who uses "creamy texture" and "welcomed by the back of my throat" in the same sentence.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Every french person knows that before puberty! What to discover next, "ice cube is a red bordeaux is a bad idea" ? or "people who put fizzy water in their chablis should be shot" ?
Actually its not because it is white and sparkling, its more because it is acidic and not overtly fruity that it goes with many foods. A dry Riesling will also go with any food that Champagne goes with, as will some other wines. Some red wines do go well with fish but you have to pick carefully. And ales go well with food but again you have to pick and choose a bit. Though something like Adnams goes with a lot of different foods too.
Truly, a very fine champagne style wine is produced by the Summerhill Estate Winery in Kelowna, British Columbia. Their secret is to age the wine under a carefully constructed pyramid so that "all the atoms spin the same direction".
"The site was carefully chosen. First a check of interfering energies was exhausted (i.e. underground streams, electric current exposure, gas line interference, etc.). Then the earth under the pyramid was compacted to 100%. Then a surveyor lined up the square base to coincide with exact True North as it is here in Kelowna. The area was then checked by an astronomer who lines up the foundation to the North Star precisely. It is interesting to note that much excitement took place when we aligned the site because the astronomer's news that almost to the day, 1997 was "the year of the Great Pyramid"."
"The pyramid effectiveness may also be explained using Einstein's concept of Tachyons and Tardyons. Tachyons are particles of invisible energy that move faster than the speed of light (that means it is faster than 186,282 miles per second). Tardyons behave in the opposite way, moving below or at the speed of light. This brings about the theory of negative space-time. [Negative space-time is 180 degrees from positive space-time. In positive space-time living organisms change from life to deterioration. In negative space-time, life moves from deterioration to rejuvenation. It is said that the pyramid serves as the interface between positive and negative space-time."
Scoff if you wish, but they make some very, very fine wine.
Three Squirrels
Things like methanol (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd =Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3588516&dopt=Abstrac t) and fusel oil (a heavier alchohol) are supposed to aggravate hangovers. They're toxic. Of course so is ethanol, but the effects may be different.
Methanol, by the way, becomes toxic when metabolized by alcohol dehydrogenase. A perfectly valid first aid measure for methanol ingestion is to feed the victim vodka. The ethanol keeps the enzyme busy until the methanol can be excreted unchanged. This *may* be why "hair of the dog" helps, though it could jus be general numbing.
Hangovers seem to be a blend of several problems including dehydration.
This gets posted 2 full DAYS after New Years, and 36 hours before the first Monday morning of 2004.
THANKS for the timely advice! I'll keep that piece of useless information firmly stored in my head for another 360-ish!!
Firstly, Veuve Clicquot are an excellent producer. Secondly, you got one of the finest years in a very long time. If memory serves me well, there hasn't been a better year since.
I personally had a 1990 Lanson and it was brilliant.
Don't expect the non-vintage stuff to be a patch on what you had, btw. Personally, I drink cheap fizz from Spain or regional France instead of NV champagne.
From my saltwater aquarium days, I noticed that bubble size is related to higher salinity; which is also related to water density. I imagine these also affect surface tension too.
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
I only read the discovery article, but the science seems a bit weak to me.
From what I gather, they took a number of sparkling wines that were rated of different qualities and then tried to determine the difference. Given this methodology, its not at all surprising that they found that the size of the bubbles was the differentiator since I was under the impression it was already well known that smaller bubbles was better.
If the wine tasting community already believed that smaller bubbles were better and that influenced their ranking, then it shouldn't be too surprising that the study turned up a correlation.
Perhaps I'm not giving the study enough credit -- because Discovery doesn't go into that level of detail... but I hope that they used some sort of blind taste test w/ people other than trained wine tasters to establish the ranking system for the different champagnes that they tested...
Evolution: love it or leave it
An EMT friend of mine (not a doctor, but still) informed me that a hangover is caused mostly by dehydration, as you mentioned, and vitamin deficiency. Alcohol dehydrates you and with that also saps out all the water soluble vitamins. He said a surefire cure for a hangover is 2 ibuprofin, like 5 multivitamins and at least 2 summerfest cups(su of mesurment for milwaukee) of water. Its worked for me pretty well, got pretty trashed wed night, took vitamins before bed and felt pretty good in the morning (well, i didn't get up till late afternoon). Also as you mentioned, impurities are also a factor, cheap liquor is a guaranteed hangover. Spring a couple of extra bucks for Kettle 1 instead of some cheap vodka and your head will thank you in the morning.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
... on the other hand, is an English invention.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks