Is there any way to get the original cork back in the champagne bottle once it’s been popped? Unlike a wine cork, which is generally straight sided and easy to stick back in, a champagne cork is sort of mushroom shaped, with a large cap on top and a stem that flares widely from top to bottom. Usually after a couple attempts I succeed only in knocking the bottle over and spilling champagne. I’ve also tried cutting the “cap” off the stem and then sticking the narrow end of the stem in, but that doesn’t work either.
Not really, but you can buy a champagne resealer that will act like a cork and keep it fresh. Or use the dry end of a cork from a bottle of table wine. 
Not really. Your best bet is to buy something that will re-pressurize the bottle, like the Champagne Saver. I haven’t purchased one of these yet. I do have a Champagne Stopper at home. My sister has tried both, and from what she’s said neither one keeps the champagne for more than another day or two before it goes flat. The pressurized one is a bit better.
Depending on the vintage, the storage tempurature, how long it was stopperless, and how much you left in the bottle, a good champagne stopper can keep fragrant bubbly freshness for a surprisingly long time.
My advice is, if you can’t finish the bottle, always try to use a stopper. You may have apple juice by the next day, you may be able to drink it a week later, but you won’t know until you try.
The wine educator at the wine dinners I have been attending says that the stoppers and resealers are an acceptable stopgap for a few days, but you’d be better off buying a smaller bottle of champagne than trying to seal it.
She usually pours her champagne leftovers into a marinade bottle, adds spices and uses it as a marinade for fowl or pork.
What I wanna know, is how do you have leftover champagne? I’ve never met a bottle that I didn’t want to finish.
Usually this comes up on New Year’s Eve. Mrs Shoeless and I will pop a bottle of champagne at midnight, but considering that we’re already up two hours past bedtime (getting old sucks!), she can finish one glass and me, maybe two, before we’re ready to hit the sack. I can usually finish it off in the next day or so but don’t want it to go flat in the meantime.
It came up again this weekend when, for our father’s day brunch, my step-daughter wanted to make mimosas. I probably could have polished off the rest of that bottle but I don’t typically do a lot of drinking before noon on Sundays!
I dont think the corks are meant to be put back in but if you put a steel spoon upsidedown in the neck it can keep the stuff fresh. I tried it & it seems to work pretty well.
I can’t imagine how one would get the original cork back in.
But we have been pretty frequent drinkers of champagne for many a year, and have used champagne stoppers for at least the last 15. In our opinion, they are very effective at saving champagne for at least a couple of days.
One of the few products that we think so highly of that we have given as housewarming, host/hostess, etc. gifts many many times.
Just to remind you, the standard wine bottle only holds about 5 glasses worth. (Could be more if you have really small champagne flutes.) So if one of you has one glass and the other 2, you really only need to have a glass each over dinner the next night to finish it off.
Sorry, handy, here is Cecil’s take on the whole spoon thing, he says the silver spoon idea doesn’t really work, and stoppers are the way to go.
One of Cecil’s best answers, including the classic line:
Oh, I don’t know, thatDDperson, many a night opening that fifth bottle seemed like a good idea, but after a couple of glasses, my enthusiasm waned.