Opening Sparkling Wine on a Plane

A viral video shows a woman opening a bottle of sparkling wine on an airplane that she bought from a duty free shop. The bottle erupts and wine goes everywhere. It’s a bad idea for two reasons, first it is illegal to consume your own alcohol on an airplane. Airport duty free shops do not sell chilled white wine to discourage drinking on planes.

The second problem – she wastes most of the bottle as the wine gushes out. But the Internet is generally wrong on why this is happening. Many cite the pressurized cabin of the airplane, but that’s not why. It’s the fact that the bottle is room temperature. If it was just the pressure, flight attendants would always spray you with soda. The plane would be a sticky mess. In first class, they wouldn’t be able to serve Champagne, and they certainly do.

It’s not the pressure of the aircraft (which is lower in the air than on the ground) – but in the bottle as the solubility of carbon dioxide decreases as the temperature rises. The same thing happens on the ground, you can test this. Open a cold Coke and a room temperature Coke.