Let's get one thing straight, There are a zillion "sparkling" wines but only ones made from the grapes of Champagne, France are actually "Champagne!" All others from all over the world are just "Sparkling wines."
Now about New Years Eve and popping those corks: Call them bubbly, or sparklers, but NOT Champagne.
Okay now that, that is out of the way, what about that big celebratory POP that people love to do when they open their gassy wines? First of all, the proper way to open a sparkling wine of any type is to place a towel over the cork and slowly work the cork out of the wine bottle until it is nearly to the point where it will POP. Take your dominant hand while still holding the towel over the wine bottle and ever so gently maintain pressure DOWN on the cork while at the same time you are twisting the very secured cork under the towel back and forth and the goal is to actually release the gas with a nearly silent psssst! THAT is how you remove a cork.
Now this is very practical! You may not care opening that $10 bottle of bubbly and losing half the bottle of wine to the floor as it explodes shooting your wine into oblivion. But when you have a more pricey of bottle of bubbly or a $50+ bottle of Champagne, and you waste half a bottle in a showy explosion you may think differently about that POP.
There is one exception to this sound advice and that is if your bubbly is "Barefoot Bubbly" by all means shoot it all over the place but in your mouth... Raise a glass!
No comments:
Post a Comment