And, now, good news for lovers of wine in a box!

This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, proposing a toast: To the fluid dynamics researchers at the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne--cheers!

They've figured out exactly how swirling wine aerates it, setting its flavor bouquet free.

Scientists already knew that circular movement--what they call orbital shaking--creates a wine wave that travels around the edge of the glass.

But the details? Well, shaky. So the Polytechnic's Mohamed Farhat and colleagues set up an experiment.

They placed wine in clear cylinders and subjected them to controlled shaking. Meanwhile, state-of-the-art instruments precisely measured viscosity and flow.

What did they find? First of all, that as the wave circles the edge, wine from the bottom moves to the top, and wine from the middle moves to the edge. Eventually, the entire volume of wine gets thoroughly mixed!

They also found that each type of wine glass has an optimal shaking speed.

So if your guests complain about the Two Buck Chuck, just blame their unsophisticated swirling. Worth a try, anyway.



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