church windows, legs, tears

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The term (also legs, little legs, windows, tears) for the liquid formations on the inside wall of a wine glass that form when the glass is swirled in a circle. This creates a more or less high, vertically arranged film of liquid. At the upper edge, the film begins to thicken and contracts into viscous, tear-like drops. These then flow back down to the liquid level.

Kirchernfenster - zwei Weingläser mit Kirchenfenstern

The decisive factor for the phenomenon in wine is the mixture of water and alcohol, but it would also work with any other mixture of two liquids with different boiling points. It would not occur with pure water or pure alcohol alone. In the picture on the right, the tears can be seen in the shadow (see arrow). The British physicist James Thomson, alias Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), recognised this phenomenon, which he called "tears of strong wine", as early as 1855. The discovery is often wrongly attributed to the Italian physicist Matteo Marangoni (1840-1925), who published it in 1871 and is therefore also known as Marangoni convection.

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church windows, legs, tears

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