Old Wine

[homer]

Watching "Modern Marvels" whole show was about champagne, wine and spirits, there's a restaurant in France that has 100 plus year old wine, how could this not be vinegar? bk

 

[tonyt]

Read "The Billionairs Vinegar". Enough said.

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[Deezil]

Some of the wineries with extensive cellars like that go through 're-corking' processes.. It's rather strict, for some of the more prominent ones (Opus comes to mind).. It's usually done something like every 10-years

Keeping a quality cork in the bottle, keeps more of the environment out of the bottle, more reliably.

I'm not sure if these processes involve sulfiting or not, but I know there's very little disturbance of the wine within the bottle during the the re-corking

 

[Pumpkinman]

There are cellars in France that date back to the times Charlemagne (He reigned from 25 December 800 – 28 January 814), with wines from that period, the way they are stored which includes the humidity levels is very important, I wasn't aware of the recorking, very interesting!

 

[Deezil]

Yep, granted not every winery does it as often as every 10 years.. Some every 20-25, some only when asked..

Those prestigious wineries will also, when long-lost wine cellars are rediscovered, take those bottles in, if asked, and authenticate them by the corks. That's why they also offer to re-cork bottles, for authentication purposes.

 

[homer]

The owner of this place snuck back into France when the Germans were about to invade and bricked up a wall where the best whine was kept. The Sommelier handled bottles like bombs, very carefully that is, they didn't look they have been touched in the last 50 years. But you know how sneaky those French are. bk