Hey! Where'd The Bubbles Go?!

You break out the flutes, open a bottle of fine sparkling wine to enjoy with your significant other -- let's say Franciacorta -- and pour: It's perfect! Beautiful brassy greenish hues, fine rich perlage, wonderful aromas, and the flavor -- things don't get much better than this.

So you refill your flutes, the foam settles down, and... Wait a sec. No perlage at all. Nary a bubble rising up through the wine.

What's wrong?

It's not the wine; as you'll discover when you sip: It's as sparkling as ever. The problem is the glass, which is too smooth -- perlage rises up from minute imperfections, and if they're quite minute, they're only able to produce perlage on the first pour.

What to do? Restaurant owners who want to guarantee perlage will scratch the insides of their flutes, just a little down by the stem where it won't show, using fine-grained emery paper.

Tiny striations, and guaranteed perlage!