Serving temperature

How to chill

The Comité Champagne gives two ways:^1,3

• an ice bucket filled half with water and half with ice, for 30 minutes before serving;
• the bottom of the refrigerator, for a few hours before serving.

Why cold helps

Temperature also changes what happens to the gas. A sealed bottle holds about 4.7 bar of CO2 pressure at 6 °C and about 7.5 bar at 20 °C.⁴ A cold bottle is calmer to open, and the cork leaves more slowly: see the flight of the cork.

In the glass, colder champagne kept more of its dissolved CO2 when poured. In one study, a tilted pour lost 1.6 g/L at 4 °C, 2.0 g/L at 12 °C and 3.7 g/L at 18 °C.⁵ Details are on pouring and CO2 loss.

In the glass

Warmth keeps working after the pour. In a study with a bottle at 12 °C, champagne in a flute held 7.4 g/L of dissolved CO2 just after pouring and about 3 g/L after 15 minutes.⁶ The same study found less ethanol vapour above a flute at 12 °C than at 20 °C.⁶ Pour small amounts and keep the bottle in the bucket between servings if you want the wine to stay near 8-10 °C.