As Rob and I talk about on the macroevolution podcast, someone asked me why the way to keep champagne bubbly after opening it is to hang a spoon or fork in the bottle (handle down). Forget why. I don’t even know if I believe the if.  I am skeptical of this, but think that keeping your bubbly bubbly is a very important goal indeedy. Soooo… I propose a Science Project. To participate, here’s what you’ll need:

3 bottles of champagne or bubbly wine, 1 die (raid the Monopoly game!), enough room in your fridge for the 3 bottles, and at least one friend.

Your method: On day 1, uncork two of the bottles. You’ll need to take about a glass of champagne out of each bottle. Feel free to drink this, or share with a friend.  Place one of the bottles in the fridge uncorked, and the second in the fridge with a fork or spoon in it. Place the third bottle in the fridge as well, but don’t uncork it. This is your “control” bottle, so it needs to be subjected to the same temperature regime as your two “treatment” bottles. On day 2, number the bottles 1-3. Keep track of which number corresponds to which treatment. With your friend(s) in another room, open the last bottle and remove a glass of champagne from it. Place all three bottles on the table. Stealthily hide the fork in the kitchen sink. You should now have three open bottles, each with a number on them, each with the same amount of bubbly in them, and they should all look exactly the same (except the numbers). Now, have your friend come in and roll the dice. If they roll a 1 or 2, they get to try bottle 1 first. If they roll a 3 or 4, they get to try bottle 2 first, and if they roll a 5 or 6, it’s bottle 3. Well, a small glass anyway. Then they roll again to see which one is next, and finally, they try the last bottle. Then, they tell you which glass was the fizzyest, which was the second fizzyest, and which was the least fizzy.  Record your findings. For each of your testers, you’ll need to write down the fizzyness rank of each of the bottles. If you are very nerdy, record them in a spreadsheet, along with details such as the kind of bubbly you used. Email your data through the Question Bot (Qbot) on this site.  If enough of you participate in this extremely worthwhile experiment, I’ll analyse the results on the podcast, and talk about the science of bubbles, and the science of champagne.

Now excuse me. I have to go buy three bottles of fine vegan champagne and find a few volunteer fizz testers…