This is what happens when scientists drink. From the journal Science comes this study of optimal wine swirling, explaining why I always get it on my shirt. Turns out, I'm swirling my wine in excess of 4 meters / second:

One evening over their own bottle of wine, Reclari and colleagues decided to tackle the physics of this oenological routine. The team filled up small cylinders in a range of sizes with different volumes of a cheap merlot, then set them spinning. To keep things uniform, the researchers employed gyrating machines, commonly used to mix liquids precisely in biology or chemistry labs. This week, at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics in Baltimore, Maryland, the group reported a mathematical formula explaining how wine sloshes.

Read on for the full story, or just enjoy the hypnotic video below:

Sinskey Cabernet via feverblue.