It is always with a great deal of anticipation that I select an older bottle of wine from my cellar. After all, I’ve resisted the temptation to open it until I believe it has reached maturity, and my expectation is that the experience will be well worth the wait.
It was thus one recent evening when I put my hands on a 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon made by the late David Lake from the Columbia Winery’s Otis Vineyard. Lake’s Syrah had amazed me in the past when it had a bit of age, and I figured the same would be true of his older Cabs.
I cut away the foil cap and inserted the screw in an attempt to extract the cork. I gave the lever a healthy yank and to my utter horror the cork crumbled before my eyes. There would be no way to remove the cork except to dig it out, leaving a coating of crumbled cork floating on the surface of the wine.
Two things came immediately to mind. First: What a mess. Second: What about the wine?
Dried out corks that either break in half or crumble are not all that rare, especially in bottles more than ten years old. Even high-end wines have this problem, on occasion. Some producers of top Bordeaux or iconic wines such as Penfolds Grange periodically offer to re-cork older bottles.
Should you encounter a bad cork, while it can certainly be messy, there is no need to panic. You will need a decanter and a funnel, and with any luck the wine might still be in good condition.
I use a funnel for such occasions. It is made specifically for wine and has a strainer to catch pieces of cork and sediment. However, you can use any standard kitchen funnel and strain the odd bits and pieces of cork through a tea strainer or a clean piece of cheesecloth.
What causes the problem is anyone’s guess. Corks sometimes dry out because the wines haven’t been stored properly, but that wouldn’t have been the case with my Columbia Winery Cab.
Sometimes, a winery simply gets a bad batch of corks.
What’s important, however, is having a work-around if this happens to you. All you need is a funnel, a strainer and a decanter, and then you’re in business. It worked for me, and the wine was beautiful.
Indeed, it was worth the wait.
8