As long as you have a metal spoon, you don't have to worry about finishing the whole bottle of bubbly in one night.

I come to you today to tell you about something magical. I find it magical for several reasons, the first and foremost being that it has to do with Champagne—or really, any sparkling wine at all. And, anything having to do with sparkling wine I find naturally has a certain allure and sophistication. It is immediately something I want to know about because sparkling wine—in any guise, be it a flute, a coupe, a cocktail, a spritz—is one of my very favorite things to drink.

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It's second only to water and coffee, which I guess technically makes it third. But it's first in my heart, even if it's third in the pecking order of necessity for functioning. Along with all other sane people, I turn toward a regular rotation of Aperol spritzes and sparkling rosé during the stretches summer that are most sun-soaked and Mediterranean.

And the rest of the year, I keep a bottle of sparkling wine on hand at all times just in case there is something to celebrate or a bad day to shake off, which, let’s face it, there is at least a couple times a month.

But, here is the trouble with sparkling wine: It is sparkling, and if you don’t drink the whole bottle, then you need one of those super-complicated-snazzy-multi-part-hinged-top-with-pump-attached-thingamadoos if you want to store the remainder of your bubbly beverage so that it doesn’t go flat and subsequently to waste.

...Or do you?

Here comes the true magic: You don’t. All you need is a spoon. I learned this trick at least 9 or 10 years ago and have been using it quite effectively ever since. No one else I have shared it with has known about it already or has even remotely been able to explain it. Thus, magic.

Today I share it with you, and if you can explain it, well, I’m not sure I want to know. This is the trick: All you have to do is dangle a spoon, bowl side up, handle hanging down, in the top of the open sparkling wine bottle and leave it in the fridge.

Seriously.

That’s it!!!!

No other closures, no nothing, just a dangling spoon. I feel stupid even saying it. But, it works.

It works best with a silver spoon (because all magic works best with silver), but I have also had it work just fine with a plain old stainless steel spoon. Plastic, on the other hand is no dice. The handle doesn’t need to be touching the liquid or anything (if it is, you clearly haven’t had enough of your wine and probably should have at least one more glass). You just dangle the spoon in, refrigerate, and leave it. It has not worked 100% of the time, but over the last decade of regularly drinking sparkling wine, and regularly taking multiple days to make my way through the bottle, I think it has only not worked three times.

That’s a dang fine performance. If I have an open bottle of sparkling wine, it routinely takes me at least 4 days to finish it if I don’t have someone else sharing it with me (what can I say, my husband stereotypically prefers beer. P.S. This has also worked for us with large bottles of beer we didn’t finish in one sitting, those fancy Belgian-types, for example). If I dangle in a spoon, the wine is still fizzy on all three consecutive extra days when I pour myself a glass.

So, pour yourself a glass of bubbly—and grab a spoon so you can save the rest—because this is a trick worth celebrating.

First and second to last photo by Emily Vikre; all others by James Ransom