How does a champagne bubble form?

Diary #4: Do you know where the fine bubbles in champagne come from? I will try to explain to you what surface tension is and how this physical phenomenon holds a primordial place in our beautiful world of Champagne!

The fineness of the champagne bubbles comes from the surface tension.

You ask me, why and how to explain the fineness of the bubbles of a champagne? If champagne was born in Champagne, well before the champagne making that we owe to Dom Pérignon, it is not by chance! It is above all because it was naturally the place where the wines had the greatest ability to retain their carbonic gas, and this with great resistance and finesse.

How do champagne bubbles form?

Surface tension is a physico-chemical phenomenon linked to the molecular interactions of a fluid".How can these fine bubbles be explained if not by the conjunction of different factors: first and foremost by geology, which gives the mineral to the grapes, and then to the wines that the winemaker will sculpt. Secondly, but only secondarily, the climatology, the grape varieties, the cultivation methods, the vinification ... To simplify, the surface tension is the resistance of the wine, its capacity to retain gas and therefore the bubbles!

So we have the bubble. But let's talk about the finesse of bubbles! In the first stage of champagne making, it is still quite big, but as time goes by, it gets finer, to become only a fine lace. So to sum up, you need the place (in our case, the Champagne) and the time (here the vintage).

But now if you ask me "superficial attention", I would tell you that the bubble is a trapped wind,a wind of joy, a wind of madness, a wind of freedom; the bubble is a cascading laughter... it's a joyful child's laughter!

Anne Gremillet (Gremillet Champagne House)