Open That Bottle Night- Guide To Cork And Tips For Opening Vintage Wines

While COVID-19 has forced us to delay major celebrations, it has also taught us to celebrate the here and now. For many of us, this might be the year to begin celebrating Open That Bottle Night, which falls in 2021 on Saturday, February 27^th.  Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, wine writers for The Wall Street Journal, created Open That Bottle Night to encourage people to enjoy a wine they had been saving for a special occasion that never arrived. The celebration takes place every year on the last Saturday in February.

You’ll want to pay careful attention, though—especially if you are opening an old bottle. There’s nothing more frustrating than a cork topping a treasured bottle breaking in half or disintegrating. You may wonder why still even bother in the age of screw caps and artificial corks?

Below, we share some wine opening tricks, explain why cork is still used to seal fine wines, and review the history of cork and its production – along with some fun facts.

How to uncork an old wine bottle

• Use an “ah-so” wine opener, which has two prongs that you gently ease into the bottle using a lateral back-and-forth rocking motion, adjusting pressure as needed. Slowly twist and pull.  
• If the cork breaks, substitute a corkscrew and insert at a 45-degree angle, pulling ever so gently.
• If you have to push the cork into the bottle, use the handle end of a teaspoon and push gently. Then filter the wine through cheesecloth or mesh strainer directly into a glass, as oxidization will occur quickly.
• If you often drink older wines, consider investing in the Durand – a two-part device that combines ah-so-style prongs with a corkscrew that work together to extract fragile corks.

What’s so special about cork as a wine stopper?

• Natural cork has the perfect membrane to protect wine from oxidization. Its microstructure of 14-sided cells shut out harmful gases, while allowing just enough oxygen in to allow for bottle ageing. Cork stoppers are light (made of nearly 90% gas), compressible, and flexible, which enables them to adapt seamlessly to their bottlenecks and create a tight seal. 
• Corks do not absorb the fruity, floral notes of wine, but they do act like a mini oak barrel, imparting phenolic compounds to the wine and softening the tannins. As a result, the wine preserves its color and taste while developing greater texture and complexity as it ages in the bottle. 
• While cork’s reputation once suffered from recurring cases of TCA, better known as “cork taint,” which produces a musty cardboard or wet basement smell in wine, improved sterilization methods have greatly reduced TCA. Today’s screw caps pose a threat to cork, but mostly for younger wines, where they preserve freshness and acidity.   

The history of cork

The love affair between wine and cork dates to at least 1 BCE in Ephesus (present-day Turkey), where cork-sealed wine amphorae have been found. Later evidence from Pompeii confirms that ancient Romans also used cork to plug their wine vessels. In the medieval era, cork gave way to cloth and wooden stoppers, or to pitch and wax.

Other winemakers topped their wine with olive oil to prevent oxidation. In “To Cork or Not to Cork,” George Taber traces today’s custom of tasting wine before serving to the practice of making sure the oil was gone before pouring for others.

The emergence of glass bottles in the 17^th century, however, is what sealed the path for cork. At first, glass stoppers were used, but cork won out as the more affordable choice. Dom Pérignon became a pivotal influencer at the time, choosing to seal his champagne with cork rather than oil-soaked rags.  

How are cork stoppers produced?

Cork is harvested from cork trees—a species of oak—found in forests that grow in sandy soils along the western Mediterranean, from Portugal to Italy and North Africa. Today, cork is primarily grown in Portugal, and nearly half of the world’s corks are processed just south of Oporto, home of Port.

The cork tree’s bark is so thick that it can be stripped without hurting the tree. Harvest occurs during the hot summer months, when running sap makes it easier, though still grueling, work to strip the bark. Highly skilled craftspeople manually strip four-feet sheaths of bark, which rest for six months and are then boiled to reduce bacteria and mold and increase pliability and thickness. The sheets then rest on concrete warehouse floors for three to four weeks, after which they are cut into cork-length strips. Next, the cork stoppers are punched out of the strips, polished smooth, and treated with hydrogen peroxide before they are re-washed, branded, and coated with silicone or paraffin so they can glide into the bottle.

Corks are graded into eight quality levels. The lowest grade has the most markings and can be made of agglomerated cork pieces, while the highest grade shows the fewest markings and is cut from a single swathe of bark. Corks for champagne, whose bottle has a wider diameter to stand up to the internal pressure, are made from agglomerated cork granules, to which natural cork discs are attached to one of the ends.

Fun facts

• Each hectare of cork forest (~ 2.5 acres) produces 230 kg. or 500 lbs. of cork
• Cork trees can only be stripped every nine years by law
• A cork tree is first stripped when it turns 25 years old, but it is not until the third harvest that the tree provides suitable bark for cork (hence, natural corks take 43 years to be ready to harvest!)
• The average cork tree lives 200 years and will be stripped about 20 times
• The first corks were tapered but then evolved into a cylindrical shape to work with corkscrews
• The cork industry generates one billion euros in exports for Portugal
• Portugal’s cork forest or “montado” is a biodiversity hotspot and sequesters 14 million tons of CO2 each year
• A natural cork stopper sequesters 112 g. of CO2 per unit 

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