How fast does a popped champagne cork travel?

Champagne corks can fly at 50 mph

It’s impossible to pinpoint just how much that tension-bursting “pop!” adds to the enjoyment of a bottle of Champagne, but human ingenuity has found ways to measure the speed at which a cork shoots from its mooring. In 2008, a German scientist calculated that the average speed of a Champagne cork is just under 25 mph, though they also noted that 62 mph could be reached under the right conditions. Other sources, including the American Academy of Ophthalmology, have noted that champagne corks can easily go flying at around 50 mph.

This high-speed bedazzlement is the result of the way Champagne (and all sparkling wine) is created. Since that magical late 17th-century day when Dom Perignon discovered the recipe — and likely even before that — the beverage has been made by adding yeast and sugar to an existing base of wine. Sealed tight in a bottle, this mixture undergoes a second fermentation that produces its signature carbon dioxide bubbles. That second fermentation swells internal pressure to 90 pounds per square inch — approximately three times the level of an inflated car tire. Upon finally achieving release when the bottle’s wire is unwrapped and its stopper nudged, the pent-up carbon dioxide not only ejects the cork at parkway-level speeds, but also generates supersonic shock waves that resemble those unleashed by rockets and jets.

Of course, such a violently ejected projectile needs to be handled carefully; while it's used to comic effect in movies, a poorly aimed cork can shatter glass and result in ghastly injuries like a split eyeball or a detached retina. Drinkers will want to follow safe-opening guidelines that include chilling the sparkling wine to reduce pressure, aiming away from the body, and gripping the cork while twisting the bottle.

The traditional Formula 1 celebratory Champagne spray began by accident in the 1960s

It’s unclear when overflowing bottles of Champagne became a regular sight in the locker rooms of pro athletes celebrating a championship, but for motorsports at least, the tradition of the winner spraying the crowd with a bottle of bubbly has a clear origin. At the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans race, Swiss Formula 1 driver Jo Siffert was handed a bottle that allegedly had been sitting out in the sun for too long, resulting in a surprise pop and unexpected shower for those in proximity. The following year, American driver Dan Gurney decided to up the ante by shaking his winning bottle of Champagne and directing the outburst onto the crowd by the podium. Although the spray may have landed a little too much on team boss Henry Ford II and his new bride, even the sport’s bigwigs soon realized that there was no getting that particular mode of celebration back in the bottle.