Are You Making These 3 Champagne Mistakes?

A quick Google search leads to plenty of conversations around the holidays’ most favorite wine: champagne (and sparkling wine in general).

There seems to be lots of trepidation about storing, serving, and drinking sparkling wine the right way.

(Go here first to get up to speed on what Champagne is and how it is completely different from all other bubbly!)

We have a few opinions about this. But before I get on a little soapbox about what I think is of the utmost importance…

Here are the three most common mistakes people make when drinking sparkling wine. The nicer and fancier the sparkling wine, the more important it is to not make these mistakes!

1) Don’t serve your champagne too cold

Here’s the deal: Fancy sparkling wine (such as Champagne) has lots o’ flavor flav. It’s rich and dynamic and if you want to fully enjoy its complexities it has to be at the right temperature.

This is because the colder a wine (or any beverage is), the less you can taste it. The coldness closes off/mutes aromatic compounds. As the wine warms up, the aromas start moving around and lifting from the glass. This is when you can really start properly smelling and tasting the wine.

*Think about it: Why do you think cheap beer brands’ marketing always revolves around telling you to drink it ICE COLD?*

The ideal temperature for sparkling wine is around 50 degrees. Average fridge temperature is around 40 degrees. To avoid getting all thermometer-y about it, just take your champagne out of the fridge for about 15 minutes to bring the temperature up a bit.

Then you can use your instinct (seriously, just trust yourself): If you can’t taste the wine and it just feels cold and bubbly, but devoid of flavor, it’s probably too cold. If it’s not refreshing it’s probably too warm. Take it in and out of the fridge (or ice bucket*) accordingly.

And also, remember that preferences vary. If given the choice of too cold or too warm, I’d prefer too warm while I have friends that neeeeed that coldness on their tongue. So 50 degrees is not a hard-fast, dogmatic rule. It’s loose. A rule of thumb. Let your instincts and preferences guide you from there.

*Ok, I remembered another thing that really, truly is important. If you use an ice bucket, always put water in it!! Use ice only and you’ll just look like an amateur. It’s harder to stick a bottle in there without the swishiness of the water; plus, it’s more effective, as the water envelops the bottle (ice cubes only only have a few points of contact).

2) Know how to properly open a bottle of champagne

Again, we are not too dogmatic here. It’s not like there is only one serious way to open bubbly. But the important thing is to do it confidently. And in order to gain confidence there are a few tips that, if you follow them, that will make it easy and effortless.

Make sure it’s properly chilled

A room temperature bottle of champagne will have its bubbles (CO2) moving around like crazy. (Remember science class—warmer temperature means molecules are moving around faster.) When you open the bottle, it will foam all over the place and you’ll lose tons of precious bubbles—and wine.

Hold it at an angle

There are a few reasons why this works better, but more than anything it is really just to make it easier for you. Holding the bottle upright is just awkward. Plus if the cork flies out, you probably don’t want it going straight up in the air above you. Better to aim that bottle away from people, pets, and breakable heirlooms.

Keep your hand over the cork

Also for safety purposes. Some bottles (especially if they are not super-duper cold) might be dying to push that cork out. In case it does suddenly pop out you won’t want the cork flying into space where there are, again, people, pets, and breakable heirlooms.

Twist the bottle from the base

For the sake of effortlessness and ease, it’s way easier to loosen the cork by twisting the base of the bottle rather than twisting the cork. You will have so much more control. Try it and see.

Most importantly: Focus, more than anything, on keeping the cork in (not pulling it out)

Logic would tell us that when opening sparkling wine, you are well, actively opening the wine, or pulling out the cork. Not so! The bottles are so pressurized (six atmospheres…not to scare you, but that’s the same amount of pressure that’s in a double-decker bus tire) that they can do the job for you. It will basically open itself, so your job is to keep the cork from flying when it does pop off.

As you slowly turn the base of the bottle you will feel the pressure try and push the cork out. Your main goal is to keep gentle pressure on the cork so that it releases slowly and with control. (Unless, of course, you want to make it fly across the room, we are all here for that—as long as you skillfully aim it away from the people, pets, and breakable heirlooms, of course.)

PRO TIP: Try putting a kitchen towel over the cork to help your grip.

Watch Martin demonstrate ⬇️

Martin demonstrating how to open a bottle of Champagne

4) Use the proper glass to serve Champagne

There’s major science in this tip, too. I hope you all love science.

The best glass to use is a tulip glass!

Or if you don’t have one, a regular white wine glass will do just fine.

Here’s why. There are a few variables at play to get the tasting experience just right: bubbliness and aroma.

A fancy sparkling wine has complexities that you will want to smell and taste. In order for those aromatic compounds to have space to move around and reach your nose you need space in the glass for you to stick your nose in. This means flutes are 👎🏻.

To really smell and taste the wine it’s best to pour only a couple of ounces in a glass with a big bowl. (Often, Champagne bars will serve their wine in Burgundy glasses—talk about a BIG BOWL.)

Flutes, however, are good for that second variable: bubbliness!

Bubbles are formed when the CO2 in the wine comes into contact with imperfections in the glass (we’re talking microscopic blemishes in the glass or tiny bits of lint from cloths used for drying). This means that in the big-bowled Burgundy glass I mentioned above, there is a wide area where the wine touches the glass. That creates lots of bubbles which means they will dissipate quickly.

Compare that with flutes, which have a long, skinny shape. Not only do they have a much smaller surface area for bubbles to form, they are narrow at the top, which helps keep the CO2 from escaping. If you want your bubbles to last, use a flute.

But in the ideal world we want both things, right?! Bubbles and aroma.

Therefore, the glass that is the perfect balance of both (the Goldilocks glass) is one with a small-ish surface area and a big-ish bowl opening. Introducing the tulip glass.

We, personally, don't own tulip glasses, so we use white wine glasses to drink sparkling wine at home (they have a slightly smaller bowl than a red wine glass), and they do just perfectly.

Whatever you do, don’t use a coupe glass

If the tulip is the perfect balance of good, the coupe is the complete opposite. The coupe glass has SO much surface area that the bubbles are gone before you know it, and it has zero space for you to put your nose in and smell the aromas.

Never use a coupe for sparkling wine — *Did you know…rumor has it that coupe glasses were modeled after Marie Antoinette’s breasts?*

Yeah, they’re really cute (and great for cocktails, I guess), but are soooo impractical for sparkling wine.

And finally…the most important thing to remember that trumps all the above…

Don’t overthink it!

In true Sunday School style we have not only given you some useful, straightforward advice, but also a caveat. Because what you have so far is the theory, but that’s not real life.

In practice, you may not have the best glasses, or you really like flutes, or just want to drink it straight out of the bottle. However you want/can/need to drink bubbly is all good, especially because it’s a wine for celebration. Have fun with it.

Now that you know the ‘proper’ etiquette and the ‘whys’ behind them, we give you permission to break all the rules.

What Champagne rules will you be breaking next? Tell us in the comments! 🤪

(Editor’s note: Mallory actually had a long rant in this part where she laid into the snobby and pretentious ways people in the biz often talk about champagne. It was cut for brevity and the number of f-bombs, but she will gladly share her thoughts with you on request.)