About five years ago I took a little road trip down to Avignon with my sister and her family. We decided to take a detour to the famous wine village of Châteauneuf du Pape. Being English tourists, we seemed to get the cold French shoulder from everyone and found it very difficult to buy the wine, so we said "fuck you frogs" and left. On our way out of the village we saw a little shop and thought we'd give it one last try. The owner of the vineyard welcomed us in cracked open many bottles of amazing wine and we drank away. With me being a poor student I could only afford to buy a few bottles, my sister bought a few crates, but I decided to buy one very expensive 2003, which I've been saving for what seems to be a lifetime. This bottle has moved house with me four times now and I've carefully laid it down in a cool dark place on every occasion.
Because I upset my girlfriend last night I'm making it up to her by cooking a ribeye steak and thought I'd open this cherished bottle of 2003 Châteauneuf du Pape. The cunt was fucking corked. This has happened to me far to many times. Apparently 1-15% of bottles that use corks become corked to some degree. There is no advantage to using a cork, apart from in sparkling wines. So why bother?
If you do have the answer please let me know.
cos it's good for the environment innit!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.insideportugaltravel.com/news-a-ideas/environmental/3259-portugal’s-cork-industry-is-a-green-industry.html
When wine is going to be laid down it benefits from the breathability of a natural cork this does however leave it susceptible to TCA contamination.
BUT...
Apparently you can 'fix' a corked bottle of wine, never heard this one before but it's on the internet so must be true!
http://lifehacker.com/#!5131827/fix-corked-wine-with-a-bowl-and-plastic-wrap