Champagne Bubbles Liberate Flavor Compounds

Bubbles percolating up through a freshly poured glass of champagne do more than just tickle the tongue, according to a new study.   A team of European researchers, publishing in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , finds that the bubbles in sparkling wine drag compounds that activate smell receptors to the surface of the sparkling wine and then shoot them upward where a taster can easily encounter them. (Although "champagne" technically refers to sparkling wines from the Champagne region of France, all effervescent wines should be subject to the same mechanism.)   [More]

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