Can You Turn Wine Into 'Champagne' With Your Sodastream?

Who doesn't love the idea of turning an ordinary chardonnay or pinot noir into an effervescent fountain of bubbly champagne or sparkling wine? Just dream for a minute: With the touch of a button and mere seconds of fizzy blasting into a home-kitchen Sodastream machine, your evening suddenly becomes a bubbly celebration — or does it? Sorry, but that dream could quickly morph into a nightmare. 

The concept seems feasible enough. Just fill a standard Sodastream bottle with wine instead of water, and let the carbonating machine do its thing. But that's not the way it actually works. Instead, you could be facing an eruption spraying your kitchen with a sticky, sugary mess, or worse. The machine was built only for carbonating water, not liquids with different viscosities, textures, and ingredients incompatible with pressurized carbonation. In fact, the Sodastream company emphatically declares that consumers using any other liquid than water could damage the machine and invalidate the warranty and money-back guarantee.

Culinary pros brave enough to test the boundaries unfortunately report that liquids such as wine do indeed result in things like wine spewing from bottle tops, loosened CO2 tanks careening across rooms, and even damage to fingers when unscrewing the bottle. The wine could also seep into inner machine crevices, causing moldy buildup. Even so, my own enterprising curiosity wasn't prepared to fully abandon the illusion of quick-and-easy champagne-like sipping. I consequently landed on a compromise, one that indeed provides a genuine glass of vino bubbly — without the danger and mega-mess.

Here's a gentle compromise that still involves real wine, your Sodastream machine, and a special sparkly experience. It works with white wine for a light champagne or prosecco vibe, or with red wine to mimic a sparkling blush rosé. It's ready to go in a handful of minutes and requires only pushing your Sodastream buttons and pouring some of your favorite vino. First, chill a full Sodastream bottle of water in the refrigerator, along with your chosen bottle of wine. Both need to be as cold as possible when they enter the carbonation process, since CO2 molecules are better absorbed in cold liquids. Next, proceed to carbonating the bottle of water as usual, using your Sodastream machine. The wine isn't in play here yet! Keep it chilled, along with some fancy wine glasses. 

Once the water is carbonated, remove the top, and splash some of the cold vino into the bottle. Return the top and screw tightly to retain as much carbonation as possible, then very gently rock the bottle side to side, just a couple of times, to mix the carbonated water and wine. You now have a light, airy, tingly treasure of champagne-style wine. You'll need to experiment several times before finding the perfect balance between taste, strength, and effervescence. Remember to use the highest carbonation setting on your Sodastream machine to increases the bubble strength and longevity. Hint: You can also do this with fruit juices, including my personal favorite, pomegranate juice.