People get bubbly around the end of the year.
Or during weddings.
Or on their birthdays.
Or really anytime, because champagne seems to be EVERYWHERE NOW.
What's up with that?
From the end of November until early January is great for sparkling wine sales.
Traditionally champagne, which is the most famous type of sparking wine, seeing sales
peaking around holidays related to romance and celebration.
Like New Year, or Valentines Day.
There are also peaks at Christmas and Thanksgiving; during wedding season, and every Sunday when
we have brunch at my house.
Bubbly beverages are super popular, but who decided bubbles meant pleasure?
It seems kind of weird if you step back from it all and think about it right?
Carbonated water was created for sailors in 1767 by an English chemist to mimic the effervescent
mineral waters of Europe, but became popular around the continent after the French Revolution
as a holy-water replacement for secular rituals.
Bubbly beverages, like sparkling wine, contain bubbles because of the yeast microorganisms
which ferment the liquids by eating the sugars and pooping out alcohol and carbon dioxide
gas.
True champagne, from the Champagne region of France, is notoriously finicky to create.
They want to get JUST the right mixture of bubbles, sugars and sweetness.
Once it reaches the perfect balance, the vintners move the frothy liquid into the tightly sealed
bottles which are twice the pressure of a car tire -- five and a half regular atmosphere..
This forces the extra CO2 to dissolve into the liquid and combine with water to become
carbonic acid… for a while.
When you pop the cork, the unstable carbonic acid comes out of the solution, causing the
CO2 to come out of solution in an endothermic reaction (that is to say, it cools itself)
AND VOILA!!
Celebration time, c'mon!!
The vapor is over the mouth of the bottle is that endothermic reaction creating a pocket
of condensed water vapor, it's like seeing your breath in the winter.
So the bubbles themselves are just tiny pockets of dissolved carbon dioxide, left over from
the yeast fermentation.
And they’re important because they affect how we experience the flavor and aroma of
an effervescent drink; it's like a tiny fountain, stirring the champagne and adding tiny particles
of goodness to the air around the glass.
Eventually, the air pockets dissolve, as does the amount of CO2 in your champ, causing the
bubbles to slow.
But what is it that makes a bubbly drink so enjoyable?
Other animals HATE bubbles, because they're a sign of food spoilage, but the NIH studied
bubbly water to see what makes it cool, what makes it poppin', and they found an enzyme
on the sour receptors of our tongue called carbonic anhydrase 4 (CA-IV); the bubbles
stimulate the sour buds and somatosensory system.
The somatosensory system normally activates for temperature, pain, touch and taste; so
you'd think sour buds, and pain… that doesn't seem good, but for some reason the dual activation
of the buds and the nerves creates a pleasurable sensation for the brain; even though we probably
SHOULD experience it as pain and sour.
Scientists with the NIH think it might be because the bubbles are made of carbon dioxide,
and so they trigger CA-IV differently.
Normally the enzyme helps us convert carbon dioxide and water to bicarbonate and protons
so the body can balance the acids and bases in the bloodstream…
so this was an unexpected tickle.
Sort of like how spicy foods trigger pain and we like those?
Do you like your beverages with bubbles?
Without?
How are you celebrating your new year?!