For many, the holiday season goes hand in hand with sparkling wine. From Champagne and Crémant to Prosecco, Cava, and American sparklers, a bit of bubbly is sure to make any gathering a festive celebration. But if there’s one thing that can put a damper on the jovial mood, it’s a flying cork hitting your uncle in the eye, thus requiring a trip to your closest emergency room.
To prevent this from happening, the vast majority of sparkling wine producers close their bottles with metal cages, which hold the cork down and prevent the bubbles inside from pushing it out. But far too often, consumers fully remove the cage, giving the cork time to pop out on its own accord. To learn more about the importance of keeping the cage on a bottle of sparkling wine while opening, VinePair chatted with Ren Peir, a wine educator and sommelier at NYC Lower East Side wine bar Somm Time.
“If you remove the cage fully, you might accidentally lose control of the cork, in which case it can totally go flying out of the bottle,” Peir explains. “Moreover, the cage also provides some extra grip which makes opening the bottle easier.”
To protect yourself and others, instead of removing the cage entirely, simply twist open its closure loop with approximately six half turns before proceeding any further. From there, Peir says, you should twist the bottle to remove the cork rather than twisting the cork itself.
“I used to twist open sparkling
