Variations in Humidity

processes taking place in the year(s) subsequent to bottling strongly argue for the influx of new oxygen -- through or around the cork, as the case may be.

Thanks for the reply Mark. Between a slew of grading and this latest storm (lots of wet snow), this is the first chance I've had to reply.

Tom Schellberg

Just a point of amusement, but if anyone read US's _Vintage_ magazine about

1979 or 1980 (the proud, advertising-free, non-revenue-influenced US wine-critic publication that failed badly; its writers then going to a new magazine -- Speculator or some name, I forget -- _d'opinion Capitaliste_ -- which prospered) -- you remember the hoax on the lost village of Domjelac (in Basque country? Andorra? RSM? -- some such place). Old bottles were found with (Mr Lipton please note!) -- perfect seals, like ampoules, from melted glass tops. Detailed tasting notes from 200 year old wines, many nuances. It was an "April" edition. Descriptions were realistic and engaging. (Of course, I was not fooled for a minute ... :-)

-- Max

By the way I met an experienced food writer living in Andorra -- British by birth -- who asserted that the population (circa 50,000) all had the individual authority to close the borders on request -- makes thieves think twice before visiting, he said.

I put shipwreck and wines into Google and came up with:

______________________________________

This should add some more complexity to this discussion. I have followed this thread with interest, but I decided I had little to add other than speculation. I will say that long ago cork was high tech for the time compared to oil seals, wooden pegs, and such. However there must surely be a better way today. But this is a consumer issue, except for corked wines that show up early, so as usual it will be difficult to find anyone willing to pay for detailed research.

Salut/Hi Joe,

le/on Mon, 1 Mar 2004 19:04:42 -0500, tu disais/you said:-

Well first it's dissolved and combines with water

H20+SO2=H2(SO3), this dissociates to form H+ and (So3)- ions.

Then these combine with oxygen

2(SO3-)+02=2(SO4-) and the sulphurous ions becomes sulphuric ones.

That's easy!! The point at issue is that SO2 (sulphurous ions, actually) have a very powerful attraction for oxygen - much more so than most of the other components in wine. So if there IS any oxygen present in wine containing sulphites (sulphurous ions), it will rapidly be combined with the sulphites _before_ any other (slower) oxidation can take place. Actually this isn't _exactly_ what happens, because all these chemical reactions are a matter of equilibria rather than one way processes, but these equilibria are reached with differing speeds and with different priorities. The relatively energetyic oxidation of SO2 takes priority. And the SO3 formed is so stable that to all intents and purposed, it takes little part in any redox reactions.

Salut/Hi Tom S,

le/on Mon, 01 Mar 2004 22:53:17 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Not quite. There's a reasonable presumption that a bottle of good wine is filled very close to the cork. So if you look at a bottle of 20 year old wine, you will find that it's extremely rare to find one where the ullage (the space between top of wine and botton of cork - in this use of the word) doesn't exist.

Interesting. Cos I can't think of any, off hand. I'd not claim that they're down to top if shoulder or anything like that, but for me it's the norm for there to be a good couple of cms or so under the cork. Certainly, if you look at Christie's documentation and what they say about bottle fill levels, they make it quite clear that it is perfectly normal for wine levels to drop. I don't think that one can seriously dispute that _no one_ can match them for the number of old wines that they have seen (not necessarily tasted) over the decades of wine auctions in London (not to mention other sales venues).

I would say that some wine loss is normal, but that there may be a very few corks which for some reason haven't allowed a passage of liquid/air. I would hazard a guess that the only case where there would be none, may actually be less due to the corks themselves, but to environments where there was NO significant temperature variation. I've explained this is detail before, but it is obvious that the mechanism which drives the evacuation of wine and ingress of air is the steady 6 monthly variation in temperature in the cellar. If there's NO variation then there will be nothing to drive wine past/through/into the cork and therefore fill levels may not change. My point being that I'm less convinced than Michael that the process of aging and improvement of top wines is entirely independent of oxygen.

While I'm wholly on the side of screw caps use for 90% - maybe more - of wines, I'd be worried about throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if ALL wines were sealed under Stelvin. I'm not saying it IS so, but merely that it _might_ be so. The great problem of course is that until experiments are made by enough top wineries under varying conditions, we simply won't have enough data to work with. I DO accept that there's already a lot of evidence that shows that wines age under Stelvin, but from what I can see, this evidence is not so unequivocal over _how_ it ages. Is it the same? Better? Worse? In what way?

There is a very interesing article in the Wine Spectator:

or

M.

I'm sure that's true if you're including shipwrecked wines, but I can assure you that both the cork producers and the manufacturers of "alternative closures" are spending a lot of time and $$/?? investigating this issue. My money is on the alternatives. BTW, have you seen the glass stoppered wines from Germany?

Tom S

I'd say it is.

No.

Yes.

No.

They retain freshness longer, but gain more in complexity.

M.

I have a bottle (Austrian sauvignon blanc 2003 from Sattlerhof) at home.

But I have a twofold reservation about the glass stopper. First, will the cap provide enough pressure over a long period of time to ensure tightness? Second, the PVDC layer is quite thin. This means that glas and stopper must be more or less perfectly round to give a tight fit. If one or the other has an oval eccentricity, then they might not prove tight. Anyhow, the screw cap technology is much more advanced and has proven fine for over three decades, so there is not the slightest doubt an which to chose - IF I was asked. I still can't understand why Bordeaux chateaux can't offer futures with a choice of closure (they could even command a small premium), just about the same way you have the choice of bottle size. After all, it's my decision to take the risk, and they could easily make everybody happy.

M.

Did you find that in a book or do you simply remember that from your days of hanging around with Sir Thomas Newton?

Shit, All I can remember is H2O is Water and not to ever get in the Hindenburg.

Salut/Hi dick,

le/on Tue, 02 Mar 2004 14:00:31 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Ernie Rutherford, actually. I did chemistry for 10 years or so, and it is still a thing that fascinates me. One reason I became a chef. To paraphrase Heinlein "Think of it as chemistry in action"

In any case - not to put you down - redox (reductionoxidation) reactions are part of elementary chemistry, in my 2nd year at school iirc.

The Hindenburg was alright. It was the sparks that were the problem!! Chuckle.

You should meet Herve This.

Mike

Mike Tommasi, Six Fours, France email link