Effervescence in a glass of champagne: A bubble story

People have long been fascinated by bubbles and foams dynamics, and since the pioneer work of Leonardo da Vinci in the early 16th century, this subject has generated a huge bibliography. However, only very recently, much interest was devoted to bubbles in champagne wines [1]. Small bubbles rising through the liquid, as well as a bubble ring (the so-called collar) at the periphery of a flute poured with champagne, are the hallmark of this traditionally festive wine, and even if there is no scientific evidence yet to connect the quality of a champagne with the fineness of its bubbles, people nevertheless often make a connection between them. Therefore, since the last few years, a better understanding of the role played by each of the numerous parameters involved in the bubbling process has become an important stake in the champagne research area. Furthermore, in addition to these strictly enological reasons, we also feel that the area ofbubble dynamics and especially the area of collapsing bubble dynamics could benefit from the simple but close observation of a glass poured with champagne. In this paper, our first results concerning the close observation of the three main steps of a champagne bubble's life are summarised, i.e. the bubble nucleation, the bubble ascent and the collapse of a bubble bursting at the free surface of the liquid. Our results were obtained in real consuming conditions, in a classical crystal flute pouredwith a standard commercial Champagne wine.