If champagne sits around long enough for most of its dissolved carbon dioxide gas to form bubbles and escape into the air, we say that the champagne has gone flat. When we drink flat champagne we don’t feel the pleasant fizz of new bubbles forming. To keep champagne tasting good, we want to keep the formation of bubbles to a minimum until we drink it. Does A Good, Clean Glass Matter? There’s a scientific basis for the idea that champagne retains its dissolved carbon dioxide longer and therefore tastes better if it is poured into a good, clean glass. It is practically impossible for dissolved carbon dioxide to come out of solution and form a bubble spontaneously in the middle of a liquid–so it doesn’t happen. Instead, new bubbles tend to form where tiny pockets of air already exist.