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Using UNUSED corks of uncertain age/backrgound?

Long time lurker, first time poster.

So I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and travel up to the wine country quite often, as do some of my friends. So one of my pals goes up there and apparently, from what they tell me, they stopped by one tasting room, and it was during normal business hours, and they were closed. They determined that the place must have gone out of business, as these are som unfortunate times for certain smaller and lesser known businesses I believe. So while they were getting back in their car, they saw that the dumpster was full, overflowing with junk. Some of that junk was HUGE sealed bags of UNUSED corks. So they grabbed two bags of them, and brought them back for me. They didn't tell me about them right away, and I was absolutely excited about it. I asked them if there were any more, and they said that "the dumpster was full of bags of corks." But by that time, the trash had most likely been emptied. Argh!

So these two bags were still sealed, and I opened one up (looks like a gross to me) and they are nice looking corks, not composites, or composites with cork discs on each end, but solid corks. So I've been thinking about using them, but then I thought to myself, "Well, what if they weren't from an out of business vineyard? What if they were tossing these because there was something WRONG with them? Why risk my wine on them?" But I then thought, "Relax, don't worry, have some homemade wine. They're probably OK."

Any way I can tell? I smell them and they smell...well...like corks. They look...you know, like corks.

Plus, two gross would almost get me through this year's run. Free would be a good price.

Regards,

Deadend

Reply to
Deadend
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Since this was a vineyard/winery, and not a cork-manufacturer, it is unlikely they would discard defective corks. They would send them back to the supplier/manufacturer for a refund. Wouldn't you? Remember, it wasn't just two bags, it was a whole dumpsterful!

Similarly, if they were the wrong size, or had the wrong imprint, they would have returned them, or found a buyer.

On the other hand, why would they have discarded them just because they went out of business? Surely they could have found a buyer in the Marin/Napa/Sonomo area? Maybe they were in a hurry to get out of town?

You say they look ok and smell ok. Measure the diameters of a few corks. Are they out of round, or the wrong size for a standard bottle? Squeeze them. Do they crumble? Are they radioactive? If you can't find anything noticeably wrong with them, why not use them? If they were in sealed bags, and even if they were not, and microbial or organic problem would probably be visible by now (assuming several weeks since you discovered the treasure).

Also, don't assume that dumpster has been emptied. If they went out of business and couldn't pay all their bills, it may not have been collected yet. I'd drive from SF to Eureka if it meant saving a few thousand dollars. Even if it's empty, you could always visit another winery. :)

Did you happen to notice if they had a Lugano destemmer hanging around looking for a good home?

Reply to
Negodki

Yeah, I thought about that. Why throw them away? Why not return them? I guess they were in a hurry, like you said, and didn't have the time, for whatever reason. Running away from the mafia and not the bank, maybe?

That's aother interesting thing. There's NO imprint. I was surprised by that, but in a way, it's preferrable for me.

I dunno. Don't think I ever will.

They are pretty uniform and round. I didn't think to measure them. That's a good idea. See, that's why I always ask. There's always something you never thought of.

Well, there's a happy thought I also hadn't considered. Surely, you're joking. Right?

Yep, my pals found them, put them up on top of a cabinet and forgot about them for weeks. Later on I happened to mention the grape harvest and that jogged their memory and they went and grabbed the corks. It was one of those "wow!" kind of surprises, followed by "crap!" because I couldn't believe that there was a whole pile of them, that I would have gone and grabbed in a New York minute. But it's been over two months now, and they're going to be gone. Hell, the building was probably taken over by somebody else by now.

Yeah, I hear you, but it's been months. They're gone. The killer was I was JUST up there a few weeks prior, harvesting some grapes. (Half a ton, plus the 300 lbs. I bought from my middleman down here. It'll be a big year for me.) had I known then, I would have driven by and looked. But I'm not going back up there now.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly, also. I alwasy like to keep a couple hundred in cash in my pocket as you never know. If I had stumbled upon this place, I would have poked around a lot more and would have made an offer on a crusher/destemmer, a nicer press (a bladder press would be sweet), well, ANYTHING I could use at home. And this hobby year after year seems to be becoming more of an obsession...

Regards,

Deadend

Reply to
Deadend

Negodki: Are they radioactive?

Deadend: Well, there's a happy thought I also hadn't considered. Surely, you're joking. Right?

Negodki: I'm joking, but you never know. I knew someone who made a set of darts out of "spent" uranium, not realizing that it was still radioactive. Don't worry about it. There's nothing in a winery, or in that area of California, to create such a problem. On the other hand, if your analogue watch goes crazy every time you get near the corks, or if your geiger counter is trying to keep time with a bubbler on steroids.... :)

Negodki: Did you happen to notice if they had a Lugano destemmer hanging around looking for a good home?

I had something similar happen. There was a "local" winery (not a very good one) that I passed on my monthly trips to the city. I kept meaning to stop in, because I knew they were liquidating SOME of their supplies, but first I was too busy, and then I never saw any cars there, and assumed it was closed. I finally stopped by, and found the place was completely empty! They'd gone out of business, and fire-saled everything for about 10 cents on the dollar. I could have had tanks, destemmers, crushers, bottles. H*ll, I could have opened up a winery!

Reply to
Negodki

This is one indicator for you. A fresh bag of corks should smell more like sulfur dioxide than corks. So much so that it'll make you gasp.

Any corks I've received came 1000 in a bag.

clyde

Reply to
Clyde Gill

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