I was snooping around my wine cellar the other day and noticed that one of my white wines had blown a cork! I just kind of stood there and looked at the wine bottle standing there with the cork laying on the concrete floor and the capsule (the enclosure around the neck) frayed as if an explosion had ripped open the top of the bottle.  This is not good stuff, no matter what frame of mind you are in. I simply do not remember when I stood the wine up or why, but there it was standing there like a spent soldier.

     

The wine was an older German Riesling and I guess I must have moved the bottle and stood it on end so that I could get other wines underneath and had simply forgotten to lay the little beauty back on its side.  The bottle had not leaked on the other wines which was a good thing because laying directly underneath the Riesling were some pretty pricey French Rhones whose labels would have been ruined with sticky German Riesling.  Had the wine been on its side the story would have been different and I would still be upset.

 

All of this leads me to one new fact in the wine world and one traditional fact; enclosures and secondary fermentation.

     

The world is changing very quickly in the wine business with the new closures on the market. These closures are the plastic (kind of) cork, the screw cap and the new glass "T" cork with gasket.  Every one of these new gadgets are designed by the winemakers to avoid "corked" wines. "Corked" wines are wines which have had "bad" corks (bacterial) that have been in contact with the juice. Because corks are porous they may harbor beasties which can taint wine. Other factors can cause these corks to go bad but in all cases "corked" wines have been known, historically, to cause up to 10% loss to wineries.

 

As an industry wine judge I have seen this phenomena time and time again and the wines can be really foul in the nose as well as in the taste. The three new closures negate this problem as well as allow one to store bottles upright! The era of dusty old wine cellars where all of the bottles look at us neck out will soon come to an end. My guess is that within ten years we will see very little need for horizontal storage in wines.

 

These two facts, much less spoilage and new wine storage systems, are huge developments in the wine world.

    

 As for the traditional problem of secondary fermentation in the bottle this is also going away!  My old Riesling, which popped its cork, happened from the interaction of live yeast and sugar in the wine.

 

After a time, or because of the agitation of the wine bottle when I disturbed it, the yeast began "working" causing an expansion of carbon dioxide (one of the many byproducts of fermentation) in the bottle, which blew the cork and thankfully did not crack the bottle. Today's winemaking is so very clean that "secondaries" are very rare, which is a good thing!

     

Recession wine value of the week- Balbo Cabernet Sauvignon Mendoza, Argentina 2005. $7.99. I am trying to place one or two really well valued wines in every week's article. I know that many of us can, at one time or other, be strapped on the old wine budget so here's the bargain of the week. This wine comes from a country where the dollar is still strong and the wines are getting better and better.  This little offering is not a powerhouse red wine but where it lacks the purple beef department it really makes up for in dry, supple, long and elegant flavors with a bouquet of dark plum and cherry. I think this Cabernet is a very good buy on every level and will go well with a variety of traditional dishes meant for Cabernet Sauvignon. At a cent under eight bucks, it's a deal for sure. See you next week.