Some journalists from several countries have already had an opportunity to try the champagne during a flight taking off from the French city of Reims.

The specially equipped Airbus Zero-G plane made a series of parabolic manoeuvres, climbing steeply before plunging down to create 20-second spurts of weightlessness.

This unusual project is a creative collaboration between the Mumm champagne house and a famous designer Octave de Gaulle. Together, they took up a challenge to keep the wine in a bottle in zero gravity.

"You could imagine drinking it with a straw," said physicist Gerard Liger-Belair, who consulted on the project -- though it's unlikely you'd ever find a champagne fan stooping to such an indignity."

However, they did not want for the product to be just functional. One one the main goals was to make the idea work and be fancy at the same time. In search of a more elegant solution, several years ago the Mumm team turned to De Gaulle -- a great-grand-nephew of the French wartime leader Charles de Gaulle -- who created a bottle divided into two chambers.

The champagne itself stays is in the upper space, while below is a finger-controlled valve which uses the champagne's own carbon dioxide to eject small amounts of wine which emerges as foam. It was a great solution, but there was still one problem – in zero gravity alcoholic foam could easily stream across the cabin.

'The bubbles of carbon dioxide in carbonated beverages aren't buoyant in a weightless environment, so they remain randomly distributed throughout the fluid, even after swallowing,' says Nasa. 'This means that carbonated beverages including soft drinks and beer may become a foamy mess during space travel.'

Mr De Gaulle came up with a solution – he created an aluminium strip that forms a ring over the bottle's top to capture a sphere of bubbly. The futuristic bottle uses the natural gas in Champagne to 'expel the liquid into a ring-shaped frame'.

Drinkers can then scoop the wine out of the air using a tiny yet long-stemmed glass which resembles an egg cup.

It is important to mention that the product was definitely created not for astronauts, as they are not allowed to drink alcohol on the International Space Station. However, considering the coming wave of sub-orbital and orbital space tourism promoted by private operators could provide a target audience for this unusual astronomic delight.

"They won't have to be performing any professional tasks onboard, so they'll probably be able to drink a bit of alcohol," said astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy, who heads the company that operates the Airbus Zero-G.

Clervoy noticed that the moment the foam turns to liquid in the mouth is a sensation that cannot be matched on Earth.

"It's really magical because the champagne lands not just on your tongue but on the palate, the cheeks -- the gastronomic sensations are magnified," he said.

Mumm house is now in search of a partner, either a public space agency or one of the private upstarts.

In the meantime, De Gaulle plans to refine his prototype, and who knows, maybe one day astronauts in orbit will be able to celebrate New Year with a sip of champagne.

"There has always been a bit of alcohol in space, even if it's officially prohibited," he said.