Cigar Weekly

jazznut · 07-15-2008, 09:40 AM

While significant evaporation may not take place in a traditional, cork-stoppered bottle of wine, the cork does still act as a conduit of sorts, allowing wine to saturate through (with time) to the cap (be it metal, plastic or wax). The space thus created within the bottle will, of necessity, fill with oxygen. This is why wine bottles cellared for an extensive period often see their contents gradually fall from a high neck level to a low neck or even shoulder level. Corks are notoriously variable in grain and density, and one will encounter different degrees of loss of liquid volume even amongst top-flight estate-bottled wines. The other problem one comes across with natural corks occurs when it's time to finally broach the wine. Saturated corks on bottles that have been aged beyond 15 to 20 years can be terribly difficult to remove, having a propensity to break or simply crumble into little pieces. Teflon-coated double-helix corkscrews make the task somewhat easier, but one has to be careful to extract the cork in a 'smooth-action' manner.

07-15-2008, 09:40 AM	#7
jazznut Managing Editor Emeritus Herf God Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Montreal, Canada Posts: 26,082	While significant evaporation may not take place in a traditional, cork-stoppered bottle of wine, the cork does still act as a conduit of sorts, allowing wine to saturate through (with time) to the cap (be it metal, plastic or wax). The space thus created within the bottle will, of necessity, fill with oxygen. This is why wine bottles cellared for an extensive period often see their contents gradually fall from a high neck level to a low neck or even shoulder level. Corks are notoriously variable in grain and density, and one will encounter different degrees of loss of liquid volume even amongst top-flight estate-bottled wines. The other problem one comes across with natural corks occurs when it's time to finally broach the wine. Saturated corks on bottles that have been aged beyond 15 to 20 years can be terribly difficult to remove, having a propensity to break or simply crumble into little pieces. Teflon-coated double-helix corkscrews make the task somewhat easier, but one has to be careful to extract the cork in a 'smooth-action' manner. __________________ My whisky adventure began at the age of nine. Good things DO take time!