How to be certain champagne is perfect when the cork is popped

NOTHING drags down a celebratory moment more than warm champagne – so French scientists have worked out an early warning system to protect against such a social faux pas.

A giveaway that your champagne is not quite ready is the colour of the curl of ‘smoke’ when you pop the cork – if you have the laboratory conditions necessary to see it in the two milliseconds it exists.

For as long as champagne has existed, it has been the custom to bring it to the table in ice buckets to make sure it is served at a perfect 8C to 10C. Scientists found that a bottle of the luxury fizz emits a blue gas if it has been stored at room temperature – a telltale sign it may not be quite as chilled as expected. Connoisseurs instead need to look for a perfect greywhite cloud of fog formed on opening.

Professor Gerard Liger-Belair, a chemical physicist at the University of Reims who led the study, said: ‘The gas mixture gushing from the bottleneck during the cork-popping process can show different colours. Unfortunately, it is invisible to the naked eye because it lasts only two to three milliseconds.’