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Now, the most widely accepted mechanism behind wine tears is

March 1, 2019 by Ella Pickett

Now, the most widely accepted mechanism behind wine tears is that they form when the wine is exposed to air bubbles, which is what happens when the air bubbles are high enough.

"The water bubbles will dissolve under the alcohol, and then when the alcohol is released, they will start to flow through the wine and move to the center," Bertozzi explained. "And then, when the wine is exposed to more air, it can cause bubbles to form. The more air the wine is exposed to, the more fluid it will absorb. So this means that when you expose the wine to more air, the water will stop flowing and you can see a few tears of wine start to form, or some of them will start to drip out of the water."

This has led to new research that suggests that the wine tear formation in the water is caused by a chemical reaction between the molecules of alcohol and the water that forms when the wine is exposed to air bubbles. For instance, when the alcohol is exposed to a mixture of nitrogen and sulfur, a chemical reaction is required to form a tear. When the same chemical reaction takes place in the mixture of water and iron, then the alcohol and water combine, forming a tear. Once these reactions are complete, the chemical reaction must take place in the wine.

So what does this mean for you? Bertozzi and her colleagues hypothesize that it's because wine tears and their formation occur as a result of a chemical reaction between water and iron that's known to occur.

"The water molecules that break down iron and produce tear proteins, they're the same ones that break down a substance like alcohol," she said. "In fact, in wine, it's the alcohol that breaks down the molecule that makes the tear. So we see alcohol tears as a reaction between the two. But I suspect that the alcohol is a chemical reaction in wine, that's just what we see in the wine because it's at the same time forming in the wine. The alcohol molecules are different in these processes. Both the alcohol molecules and the liquid that they're breaking down aren't different."

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Aging (NIA), of which Bertozzi is a director. The results of the new study are published in the Journal of Experimental Biology and Medicine.