Book review

Book Review
Translated from «Pas seulement pour les sommeliers!» in Volume IV, Issue 1 – September 2005

Champagne – not just for the sommelier!
by Karl Giroux (translated by Philippe Marchand)

The sommelier who describes champagne uses a specific, if not poetic, vocabulary. However, the king of wines (and wine of the kings), when introduced by a physicist, is presented in a very different way. Here, one does not describe wine using buttered brioche flavours or roasted Corinth raisin bread, but rather using the laws of thermodynamics seen in the introductory classes of an undergrad degree in physics and chemistry.

Gerard Liger-Bélair is an associate professor at the University of Rheims (Champagne, France) who, in order to combine two of his passions, started to study most seriously the bubbles in the wines of Champagne. He works as a consultant for the very famous house Champagne Moët and Chandon, which produces the famous Dom Pérignon.

This equation-free book (in order to engage a larger audience) almost reads like a novel for a physical science student. Starting with an anecdotal history of champagne, the author then explains to the readers in straightforward language tinted with humour, the science behind these bottles. He does not hesitate to explain the physical reasons behind the characteristics of the Champagne wines: Does the smoothness of the bubbles guarantee quality? Why do champagne bubbles go up more quickly than beer bubbles? Why is the head of champagne more short-lived than that of beer? etc.

Liger-Bélair explains briefly the alcoholic fermentation, then the "prise de mousse" (introduction of bubbles) and the second fermentation (manifestation of Henry's law), the effervescence starting with the birth of the bubble (Van der Waals forces, energy barriers, and heterogeneous nucleation) until its spectacular death (Rayleigh-Plateau instability and interface dynamics) and the rise of bubbles in the liquid (the Archimedes principle, bubble speed versus quantity of surfactant molecules, trajectory). The narrative is abundantly illustrated with sketches, graphs, and superb millimetric photographs taken by a high-speed camera with a time resolution of about a microsecond.

What is a virtue for one can to be a drawback for another, and the students seeking equations will have thirst unquenched, although Liger-Bélair always gives the order of magnitude for the physical quantities mentioned. Indeed, the targeted audience is the wine amateur intrigued by science or the student interested in establishing the link between their theoretical courses and an epicurean topic. In short, it is a beautiful gift to be offered to the intellectual collector of wine books (although I would recommend removing its horrible gold jacket!).