JeffOnWire
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- Feb 18, 2018
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I was carrying an unopened bottle of month-old wine by the neck when the bottom of the bottle suddenly separated from the body, releasing the contents to cascade down my leg and pool up on the floor. As you might imagine, my living room smelled fantastic, especially after we started mopping up the wine with paper towels and turned on the fan, creating a hyper-wicking effect accelerating the transition from liquid to gas. This should be an option for air fresheners! While this was an extremely pleasant olfactory experience, certain elements of which will almost certainly be repeated in the future, with much smaller quantities under controlled conditions, I actually had other plans for that wine and that evening.
The bottle broke cleanly into two pieces with both pieces fitting together again with only one tiny shard missing (my bare toes are on the lookout). It broke a the very base, with the disk of the base separating right where it curves up to form the sides, but with uneven edges. I had carried the bottle across a room, down a hallway and a flight of stairs and a few steps into the living room when the bottom simply gave way with no warning or apparent cause. I inspected the area where the bottle was sitting and found no evidence of leakage. This is the second time something like this has happened to me; the first being some time ago (a year or more) when I picked up a bottle by the neck and the top three-quarters lifted away in my hand while the wine flooded over the bottom quarter which never seemed to move at all.
This is simply low-end kit wine and there is nothing exceptional to report about its fermenting or bottling. In both cases the bottle was of the type purchased from my local wine supply store. This bottle was not new (I reuse bottles); I can't recall whether the bottle was new or used in the previous incident. The wine is under no pressure (corks aren't pushing out, nor is there any noticeable pressure detected during uncorking). The bottles are all washed, sanitized and inspected before bottling and undergo the rigors of bottling (lifting, filling, corking with a hand corker, occasional clinking against its siblings) without incident. I've been making wine from kits for several years, but it's only been in the past year-or-so that this has happened. When it happened the first time I just attributed it to freak chance of the "meteorite crashes through roof and lands on sofa" sort. But now it's happened again.
Does this happen to others? I'm wondering should I not be reusing bottles? Is there some precaution I should be taking? I'm thinking maybe I just ended up with a bad batch of bottles, and maybe should just pitch all bottles of the same type and start a new collection.
Any thoughts?
The bottle broke cleanly into two pieces with both pieces fitting together again with only one tiny shard missing (my bare toes are on the lookout). It broke a the very base, with the disk of the base separating right where it curves up to form the sides, but with uneven edges. I had carried the bottle across a room, down a hallway and a flight of stairs and a few steps into the living room when the bottom simply gave way with no warning or apparent cause. I inspected the area where the bottle was sitting and found no evidence of leakage. This is the second time something like this has happened to me; the first being some time ago (a year or more) when I picked up a bottle by the neck and the top three-quarters lifted away in my hand while the wine flooded over the bottom quarter which never seemed to move at all.
This is simply low-end kit wine and there is nothing exceptional to report about its fermenting or bottling. In both cases the bottle was of the type purchased from my local wine supply store. This bottle was not new (I reuse bottles); I can't recall whether the bottle was new or used in the previous incident. The wine is under no pressure (corks aren't pushing out, nor is there any noticeable pressure detected during uncorking). The bottles are all washed, sanitized and inspected before bottling and undergo the rigors of bottling (lifting, filling, corking with a hand corker, occasional clinking against its siblings) without incident. I've been making wine from kits for several years, but it's only been in the past year-or-so that this has happened. When it happened the first time I just attributed it to freak chance of the "meteorite crashes through roof and lands on sofa" sort. But now it's happened again.
Does this happen to others? I'm wondering should I not be reusing bottles? Is there some precaution I should be taking? I'm thinking maybe I just ended up with a bad batch of bottles, and maybe should just pitch all bottles of the same type and start a new collection.
Any thoughts?
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