Ever Wonder? How Should You Open a Wine Bottle Sealed with Wax?

Last time we looked at some of the reasons why a wine bottle might have a wax seal over the cork. Now, to the question of how best to remove the wax so that the cork can be extracted. Here are a few options:

Probably the easiest way to remove a wax seal is if it is actually one that has a built-in tab that can be pulled - just like the foil on a Champagne bottle. Just lift the tab, pulled it around the neck of the bottle and the cap will easily come off and expose the top of the cork. But, this type of seal is actually rare. So, if you are not so lucky, there are several other options for dealing with a wax capsule.

If the wax is soft and malleable, you just might be able to peel off the wax like a foil capsule. Or, carefully use a wine opener’s knife to cut off the top of the wax seal and expose the cork.

Another approach that can be used with soft wax is to simply insert a cork screw right through the top of the wax seal and pull out the cork and wax cap simultaneously.

Now, if the wax is very hard and almost like a hard plastic there are a couple of options. First, you can try to softening the wax by holding the bottle upside down and running hot water over just the upper neck of the bottle. In this case, try to just get the capsule warm and softened without heating the entire bottle. Then peel away the softened wax or go right through it with the corkscrew.

Or, the last-ditch technique for dealing with hard wax is to just start digging away at the top. Ideally, use the knife of a corkscrew to chip away at the wax until you’ve fully exposed the top of the cork.

A wax seal on a wine bottle may look very elegant but at the same time it can make the bottle difficult to deal with. But, stay patient. There’s a nice glass of wine just waiting for you on the other side of the wax-sealed cork! Cheers!

Ever Wonder? Why Are Some Wine Bottles Sealed with Wax?

Occasionally, you may come across a wine bottle that has a wax seal over the top of the cork that somewhat covers the neck of the bottle. You may have wondered “Why is it sealed in wax?” and “How do I remove the wax so that I can get to the cork?” These are a couple of great questions to explore.

Most wine bottles today have a capsule cover the cork that goes part-way down the neck of the bottle. In the not so distant past, these were made from lead but are now manufactured from aluminum or a heat-shrinkable plastic.

Whatever the material, these wine bottle capsules serve several purposes. Originally, a capsule was used to protect the cork from insects and varmints when being transported by ship or being stored in caves. And, wax was sometime used as a seal over the cork to keep it from leaking.

With today’s availability of good quality cork, plastic corks and twist-off caps, it’s generally not necessary to add a wax seal. But, some wine producers do use it. Today the wax is used to either provide an air-tight seal for wines that are meant to be aged for long periods of time or they are used as ‘high-end’ decoration for otherwise ordinary wines.

So, these wax seals can either be functional or decorative. But, how do you get through the wax to be able to pull the cork? We’ll address that next time. Until then, Cheers!

Natural Wine Corks Help a Wine to Age but Can Also Lead to Oxidation

Over the years, I’ve had my share of wines go bad even with proper storage in a wine refrigerator that’s in a dark location. These were medium-bodied California red wines that were 7-10 years old and I had expected them to hold up well. But, upon pulling the cork and pouring a glass, it was immediately obvious by the brown-orange hue and the nutty smell and taste that they were oxidized.

It’s always greatly disappointing to have a bottle go bad and have to dump it. But why?

During some recent reading, I was again reminded that natural corks in wine bottles allow a tiny fraction of oxygen through them - this actually helps a wine age. But, what I hadn’t appreciated was that a natural wine cork can actually allow enough oxygen through it in two to three years to breakdown the sulfites that are added to wines to prevent a wine from oxidizing!

It’s often said, and I’ll repeat it again, most wines are not meant for aging. And, I’ve proved that to myself several times. So, when you purchase nice bottle of red wine, my recommendation is to enjoy it within a year or two if properly stored in a wine refrigerator that’s in a dark location. Beyond that you can run into trouble. Cheers!

Wine Faults - Cork Taint and Vinegar

Cork is the traditional closure for a wine bottle. Yet one of its drawbacks is that it can actually cause a wine fault.  And, have you ever had a bottle of wine that "had turned to vinegar?"  Well both of these wine faults can ruin a bottle of wine. So let's explore the causes.

Cork taint is due to some degree by natural chemical compounds found in cork.  Known formally as 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole (or TCA for short), this compound, when combined with chlorine and mold can result in a wine that smells like wet cardboard, wet cement or a wet dog. And you don't want to smell these scents when drinking a wine.  It only takes a few parts per trillion to taint a bottle of wine. The results can also be very subtle. With faint levels of TCA, a wine will be striped of flavor leaving a normally rich, fruity wine tasting quite dull or muted.  Often it is so subtle that after drinking the wine you are simply left disappointed without being able to determine why.  Although the cork industry states that only 1% - 2% of corks may be tainted with TCA, Wine Spectator found in 2012 that 3.7% of the bottle they sampled were tainted, down from 9.5% in 2007.  So maybe this is the reason for so many disappointing bottles of wine.

In addition to cork taint, another wine flaw is finding a bottle of wine that has "turned to vinegar."  But can wine really turn to vinegar? The answer is technically yes. But not really.  Without getting into too many technical details, the reason that vinegar tastes like vinegar is acetic acid.  And acetic acid can form in wine when it gets 'infected' with Acetibacter bacteria. This bacteria occurs naturally in the air and on fruit. But it isn't really fair to call tainted wine 'vinegar' since it tastes really bad. It's not something you'd want to mix with olive oil and pour over your salad.

If you ever encounter a bad bottle of wine, as odd as it sounds, do smell it and learn from it. And especially if a wine server takes back a bottle after opening it without even pouring it, ask to have them explain how and why the wine is bad.  Use it as a learning moment.

A couple final thoughts. First, there are no negative health affects of drinking tainted wine.  But who'd want to? And, second, if you do come across a bottle of wine that has gone bad, know that you can return it to the store where you purchased it or, at a restaurant, send it back for another one. 

May all your wines be fresh and wonderful! Cheers!

Alternatives to Natural Corks

In recent posts we learned that cork comes from the bark of the Cork Oak and that the foil capsule covering the cork was originally put into place to protect the cork from insects and rodents.  So you might wonder is all this necessary today?  Aren't there viable alternatives to using natural cork as a means of sealing a bottle of wine?

The advantages of natural cork include its ability to compress and expand (it's malleability), its proven long-term ability keep a bottle sealed, its renew-ability (because, after all, corks do grow on trees!), and a cork does allow the bottle to 'breathe' and improve (sometimes) with age. 

On the downside, natural cork may be a renewable resource, but it is a limited resource as forests of Cork Oak continue to shrink around the world.  Additionally, cork is relatively expensive since the bark must be manually shaved off the trees and processed to make corks. Another downside to cork is that it is formed in nature and, therefore, its quality is variable. This variability leads to natural corks having different degrees of 'breathe-ability."  And finally, with a natural cork, there is a chance that a bottle of wine will become tainted by the cork (subject of a future blog).

So, what additional ways are there of sealing a wine bottle that do not involve natural cork?  Well the first alternative actually involves nature cork. To deal with cost and variability, 'technical corks' are produced by grinding up the scraps of cork bark that remain after corks are punched out of the bark, and this cork 'dust' is glued together, somewhat like particle board is produced. These technical or composite corks are less expensive to produce and more consistent in quality.

Another alternative to natural cork is synthetic cork. These 'corks' are made with polyethylene (plastic). These are cheaper to produce, do not use a limited natural resource, and do not lead to possible cork taint. Due to the fact that they don’t dry out, plastic corks are easier to take out the bottle and they won’t crumble into the wine. At the same time however, they are often harder to put back into the bottle because they are not as malleable as natural cork. And, because they are plastic, they are recyclable! Finally, synthetic corks are not for serious wine collectors who purchase wines for aging. This is because they do not allow the wine to 'breathe' while in the bottle.

The other alternative to natural cork is the hotly debated twist-off cap.  We'll get into this cork alternative next time. Cheers!

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Behind the Cork™ Wine of the Week - Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel ($8)

Looking for an attainable, affordable wine?  You've come to the right place. Each week I feature just such a wine on the Behind the Cork™ Wine of the Week page of EverWonderWine.com. 

This week's wine is Bogle's Old Vine Zinfandel. This is a really nice wine and a great value. It's got intense fruit flavors without being a big 'jammy' Zinfandel. It is nicely oaked and smooth.  It pairs well with anything from the meat aisle, along with any other food with bold flavors.