"Dick R." in ...
> . . . In my experience
> it's always easy to remove the cork on a sparkling wine. Just
> ease out the cork until you hear a gentle "pop", no explosions,
> no foam, no wine on the ceiling.

That is one of the good ways, if I may so say. Actually, removing a cork
offers the same options as LTI System Identification. A hiss, a bang, or a
chirp. (Those are the three kinds of classic test inputs you use to scope
out the behavior of many acoustical, electrical, or other contrivances.)
With Champagne, some situations call for a hiss, some a bang, even a chirp
(or gentle "pop"). It is easy to select among them, with practice. Many
times when serving Champagne I have solicitously asked "what would you like
to hear?"

(Wine on the ceiling, also, is nothing if you have ever seen what happens
when a very slow-cooked stew in a pressure cooker encounters a blocked steam
outlet and slowly, quietly, inexorably, builds tension, unnoticed,
unsuspected, relentless, inescapable, till at last the structure can stand
it no longer and the relief seal explodes and the contents exit under
cataclysmic pressure -- huge vegetables, pieces of meat, excessively floured
sauce -- through an orifice less than a centimeter across. _Horribile
dictu._ But that's another story.)

For more on the principles of system identification look at comp.dsp or
search under "Detection, Estimation and Modulation Theory," à la Harry L.
Van Trees.

-- Max