Opening a bottle

Tilt 30-45° · turn the bottle, not the cork

To open champagne safely, keep a hand on the cork from the moment the wire cage is loosened, tilt the bottle 30 to 45° away from anyone, and turn the bottle rather than the cork until the cork eases out without a pop.1,2

Step by step

The Comité Champagne describes this sequence:2,1

  1. Wipe the bottle and present it.
  2. Remove the foil.
  3. Loosen the wire cage (muselet).
  4. Remove the cage while holding the cork.
  5. Tilt the bottle between 30 and 45°, never pointed at anyone.
  6. Hold the cork firmly and turn the bottle.
  7. Ease the cork out gently and keep it in your hand.

The Comité's stated aim is to release the cork gently, without letting it pop.1

The Comité Champagne documents used here do not give a number of twists for the cage. Advice with a fixed count, often repeated online, could not be traced to an official source.

Why the care

A closed bottle at 20 °C holds about 7.5 bar of CO2 pressure.3 A cork that escapes flies at about 10-15 m/s, and faster when the bottle is warmer.4 When the cork leaves, the escaping gas expands and cools sharply, which is the fog you see above the neck.3 A bottle at serving temperature is therefore safer to open than a warm one: see serving temperature and the flight of the cork. The parts of the closure are described on cork and wire cage.

See also

The flight of the corkScienceServing temperatureServingCork and wire cageMethodsHow to pourServingCO2 and pressure in the bottleScience

Sources

  1. Comité Champagne (champagne.education). Store and serve Champagne (web page)
  2. Comité Champagne (champagne.education). Factsheet: Champagne Service (EN) (2024)
  3. Nature Publishing Group. Liger-Belair G., Cordier D., Honvault J., Cilindre C. Unveiling CO2 heterogeneous freezing plumes during champagne cork popping. Scientific Reports 7: 10938. DOI 10.1038/s41598-017-10702-6 (2017)
  4. Elsevier (author PDF hosted by LMU Munich SFB 1064). Liger-Belair G., Bourget M., Cilindre C., Pron H., Polidori G. Champagne cork popping revisited through high-speed infrared imaging: the role of temperature. Journal of Food Engineering 116: 78-85. DOI 10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2012.11.006 (2013)

Facts checked on 2026-10-19