Relations between the air/wine adsorption layer and the bubble collar stability in experimental and commercial champagnes

A bubble collar is expected on a champagne flute. The mechanisms of formation of that collar have been tackled, by an integrated approach including the analysis of the adsorption layer occurring at the air/champagne interface, the measurement of the lifetime of isolated air bubbles blown in degassed champagne and the kinetics of the area covered by the collar after pouring in a flute. In the case of experimental champagnes where the surface concentration of the adsorption layer is varied, very good correlations were observed between the adsorption layer parameters, the lifetime of isolated bubbles and the kinetics of the collar area. These correlations were expected from the physics of bubbles and foams. The same parameters were determined on commercial samples bought in supermarkets. The adsorption layer concentrations were found to be in the same range as those of the experimental products, the lifetimes of isolated bubbles were often shorter and the area of the collar was much less stable than with the experimental samples. Moreover, with the commercial samples, no correlations were noticed between the measured parameters. It is hypothesised that the main differences between the experimental and the commercial samples come from the wine making technologies including the ageing on lees and in bottle.