How To Chill Your Bubbles Like A Pro

Expert tips for getting your Champagne cold quickly

Sure you’ve been planning your dad’s 70th birthday party for months, and that trip to Paris has been on the books since forever. But so many of life’s little pleasures happen on the fly. Your best friend drops by on their way home from work. Your adorable bébé chose last night to sleep a full eight hours. Today, you finally got that raise you’ve been after! Forever true to fatcork’s motto, “Celebrate Every Day,” we believe you should always have a chilled bottle of Champagne on hand to make these happy, unexpected moments feel even more extraordinary.

Champagne rests best at a cool 55 degrees, so when you bring home your bottles from the fatcork cave — or when they arrive at your door — you’re going to want to get them straight into the fridge. Sitting there in the dark between last night’s takeout and your cold brew, your bubbles will be ready to enjoy in about 24 hours.

Have you ever opened a bottle of Champagne when the cork flies out, releasing a frothy burst of bubbles out over the top and wasting the precious, fizzy nectar that is supposed to be in your glass? A mess like that means it’s not cold enough. Don’t get us wrong: There’s definitely a time and place for shaking it up and blowing the cork out to the other side of the yard or off the roof. But when a bottle is properly chilled and opened — the cork’s bulbous head nestled into the palm of your hand — the release will be softer and much more poetic. The gas escaping from the neck of the bottle should sound like the content sigh you let out after finally collapsing into your favorite comfy chair at the end of the day. Then comes that sexy puff of vapor that unfurls over the lip of the opening like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. The bubbles will still dance feverishly in the bottle, but you won’t lose a single drop.

Need your bubbles cold quickly? We get it; sometimes even 24 hours is too long to wait. Your best path forward is a polar plunge (for your Champagne, that is). Submerge the bottle in a bath of half ice and half water. And, yes, it’s more water than you think. Water is a much better thermal conductor than air, and it will help transfer the heat from the bottle faster. Sprinkling a generous amount of kosher salt in the bath will also help bring down the water’s freezing temperature. (Science is so fun when it’s about bubbles, n’est-ce pas?) Now, back to that bottle … Wait about 20 minutes, and voilà, your Champagne is ready to drink!

Pro tip: Make sure the bottle is deep enough in the ice bath that the neck is mostly immersed. You don’t want that first glass of bubbles to be warmer than the rest!

However, you choose to chill your Champagne, allow the bottle to sit out for a few moments before serving. Then, by time you open the bottle, pour your glasses and offer your cheers, the bubbles will have reached the optimal drinking temperature — just in time for your first sip. Your Champagne should be cold but not too cold to taste.

Finally, while we’d never encourage you to drink warm Champagne, don't stress too much about keeping your open bottle of bubbles in the fridge or on ice between glasses. We think it's a beautiful thing to discover the new aromas and flavors that emerge from the Champagne as its temperature rises. Glou, glou!

Cheers!
Team fatcork