Dry Corks

One of the best methods I have found for ensuring that corks stay moist and pliant is to place a bottle of sulphite solution in a 5 or 6 gallon pail, pack the corks around the bottle and fit the lid on tightly. The bottle of sulphite solution creates a humid and sterile environment for the corks which will store until needed. Larry

It's not the cellar, it's the corks. The top is all that is exposed to air, it's not a lot of surface area. Most cellars atre dryer in the winter than summer, it's not a big deal. Good corks should be soft enough to squeeze between your fingers. Regards, Joe

thanks for all suggestions. The problem is that good corks are hard to find in my area. Any suggestions for a good supplier of corks.

Joe

Corks are on their way out. When buying corks I always ask for a sample. Then I cut it in two halves and sand the faces to look at the quality of the corks. Acceptable corks are the one made with particles and then bonded together with a food safe cementing agent. Now in 2004 the quality of pure corks is too low and may impair the taste of your wine. I have been giving some # 9 synthetic corks for testing? I will slowly move to aluminum screw caps. Now I am on the look out for screw top bottles and for the standardized caps.

Denis

I'll follow your advice and examine the next bunch of corks I buy.

I have bought some Italian wines (MASI) with synthetic corks but I haven't seen them for sale. Also the commercial wines have nice long smooth corks again I haven't found any like that at the winemaking shops. Are home winemakers destined to sort through corks that have been rejected by the wineries?

Joe

Denis is right on. corks are on the way out and yes, we home wine makers have always been subjected to the corks commericial wineries don't want. And the many of the commericial guys are all considering changing to screw caps becasue the quality of their corks is not good either, resulting is too many tainted bottles of wine. Investing in several cases of screw cap bottles in the long run is economic as you will use them over and over. Larry

Colmated corks are considered to be the wine business' revenge against home winemakers, as silly as it sounds.

I found a decent supply of agglomerated corks at a local grocery store of all places, and I snatched them up. Agglomerated are the best comprimise for myself.

Not really, but it may seem that way. Actually, your money spends just as well as the Big Boys', and a well stocked homebrew shop will carry a range of corks from the el-cheapos you got to the so called "extra firsts".

It may be of some comfort to you that cork taint is a much more serious problem for commercial wineries than it is for you. If you open a bottle of your wine and find it tainted you dump it down the sink and reach for another bottle. A customer who purchases a tainted bottle from a wine shop will reach for another _brand_ next time.

There are super-premium natural corks on the market for as much as 50¢ apiece (US), but even spending that much is no guarantee of freedom from cork taint problems. That's why many wineries are switching to synthetics and screwcaps - even for their top of the line wines. It makes sense, really. How likely is it that a chunk of tree bark jammed into its neck represents the _optimum_ closure for a bottle?

Tom S

Over here in the Maritimes for the lack of a better thing I try to get colmated long # 9 for the cork size. The long one sells for about $4.99 CAD for a bag of 30 and the short $3.99.

I had never heard of colmated corks before, thanks Charles and Denis!

One company that sells these describes them as "A film of colmating material that covers the entire surface of the cork. It effectively seals the corks and covers all imperfections.. non-chlorinated cork dust is added".

The last bunch of corks I bought sure had a lot of imperfections so the above hits home.

I have always used natural corks because I always wondered what happens to the glue in agglomerated corks and now similarly "a colmating material" in colmated corks with long term contact with wine. I have seen posts that say there is no issue with short term storage and as long as you don't soak the corks in sulfite solution before use.

"Tom S" wrote > There are super-premium natural corks on the market for as much as 50¢

Tom - What corks or closures do you use?

Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas

For a number of years I used natural corks from a bag of 8000 that I bought for 4¢ apiece. (They originally were sold to Paul Masson.) I used thousands of them, and only had one obviously corked bottle that I know of. I always rinsed them in several changes of warm water, until the water ran clear, just before using them.

Unfortunately, they aren't an option for my commercial operation for a couple of reasons, so I switched to the latest version of Supremecorqs. So far, they seem pretty satisfactory. They're not as hard as the original version, which I heard were impossible to re-insert in the bottle. They are also about as corkscrew-friendly as natural cork. I had a lot of problems with some of the synthetic corqs with my lever Screwpull, but the new ones seem OK. They (Supremecorq) also say they've addressed the SO2 scalping problem that some of the synthos have. Time will tell...

Oh yeah, they're about 11¢ each. Decent quality natural cork is about double that.

Tom S

Did they say how they have addressed that? Did this relate to their revised formulation, or more to do with procedural considerations?

Brian

The info I got from them indicates that they've gone to a lower density elastomer. I cut one open and it appears to be a closed cell foam with very small cells. It has sponginess roughly equivalent to cork, although I can tell by lifting a bag of 1000 that it has a higher bulk density than cork. They are easily removable from a corkscrew and are not difficult to reinsert in a bottle by hand. Those were two of the issues I had with the earlier version.

Tom S

Hi Joe, I have not given up on naturals yet. I don't know what quantities you buy in but APM's best are now back to around 20 cents each in quantities of 1000, I always liked those and never had issues. We used them up over a few years and never had issues. I have had others that were gawd awful though.

Right now I am testing Guardian and NomaCork, both are synthetics and both seem fine. I'm happy to hear Supremecorq made some changes, I did not like them originally for exactly what Tom discussed.

There are several suppliers of small quantities on the internet, piwines.com and grapeandgranary.com have both been decent to deal with in my experience. I'm sure there are others you might like also. Most sell all kinds, natural and synthetic.

Hope that helps. Regards, Joe

But what more can you tell me about how they've addressed the SO2 issue?

Brian

It'd be better if you got that from the horse's mouth, so to speak. I have the Napa Valley rep's name at work somewhere. I'm sure he could fill you in on this topic. Remind me by e-mail and I'll get his number for you.

Tom S