Fake corks?

[Walkiry]

The oxygen thing: -the cork is ussually alco covered by a metal wrap. I would think this will not let through oxygen. Maybe it does, but then my question is do they make cork and wrap so that the amount of oxygen that passes is more or less known?. I also have bottles of "long keeping" wine that hav the cork closed with wax (the stuff to make offcial seals), I guess that does not let oxygen pass. And will the amount of oxygen that will pass the cork be significant with respect to the oxygen that is present in the wine at the moment they bottle it?.

Anyway, thanks for the wine reccomendation.

It's all related, let me explain in more detail.

When the wine is transferred from the barrels to the bottles, due to the movement and exposure to the outside air it gains quite a lot of oxygen as you said, not to talk the bottle is never filled completely. During this stage, the wine is not very drinkable (depends on the kind, young fresh wines don't really change much, but older wines do get worse), this is the so called "bottle sickness". At this point the bottle is corked and left to sit there for some time until all the oxygen has pretty much reacted with the wine and the flavour has settled.

The length of time needed, again, depends on the wine, and that brings me to the cap. If you notice, white wines and young rosé or red wines have a rather crappy cap, usually it's plastic and doesn't seal much. That's because these wines will be consumed in a very short time. Basically, all the oxidation will happen on bottling.

Older, stronger wines have a cap usually made at least partially out of lead, which will seal the bottle very tightly. The intention is that, after the initial "peak of oxydation" so to speak, the chemical reactions of the tanines and micro-oxidations will carry slowly over a few <i>years</i>, that's the big difference.

Even with this cap, wine kept for too long will end up spoiling. That's when the wax seals come to scene. In those cases the bottle is supposed to stay in storage for even longer, which basically means no cork will withstand the pass of time. If you open those wax-sealed wines when you're supposed to (I'm remembering a '78 Viña Salceda I had with my friends in 2001 for my 25th birthday :lol:) the cork is usually completely ruined.

And to end, always let the old wine sit open for a while (1 to 2 hours is recommended), even better if you can pour it into one of these wide bottles (it's called "Decantador" in Spanish, and I'll be damned if I know the term in English). That way some of the less desirable components formed during the time in the bottle will evaporate, improving the taste :)