Snooth Talk: Corked Wine Solution?

Wine Talk

: Corked Wine Solution?; Posted by oceank8, May 12.; I had a discussion with friends the other day about what it means to have a "corked wine." In that discussion, I was reminded of a talk I had with a wine maker a month back. He opened a bottle that was corked and told me how it could be fixed. He claimed that someone else had learned this in school, he had tried it, and it had worked. They took ziplock bags and cut them in strips, inserted them in the bottle, let it sit for 20min., and then decanted the wine. He claimed the "corkedness" went away. I question has anyone heard this? tried this? If it is true, does it mean you are adding chemicals from the ziplock to your wine? I don't know, whole thing just sounded strange!

223 531: Reply by mark, May 13.; I haven't tried this myself, but Philip blogged about this solution way back in the day:

http://blog.snooth.com/2007/04/13/saving-corked-wines/

Wow! That was back before we even launched the site.

179 138: Reply by oceank8, May 13.; I guess I will have to try that next time! Glad I posted, it seemed like a wives tale. I was also wondering about "fizzy" wines. I know these aren't called corked, is there a name for them? Is there some unique tip for helping these out?

235 72: Reply by Sung, May 13.; We tried the ziplock method at home. It only works if you finish the wine that evening is what I was told, but then again, it's rare we don't finish up a bottle of wine we open. I didn't get the plastic bag taste that I thought I would. Just make sure the bag is clean. :-)

872 1208: Reply by Philip, May 13.; Ocean - you mean sparkling wines that are corked? or still wines that scarily became sparkling? The latter is...thinking...lactic acid fermentation or some other unintended secondary fermentation. Some still white wines are given a boost of Carbon Dioxide to make them crisper, but thats by design.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_fault - there's a lot of faults possible

Thanks Mark - that was back in the day when i wrote much more elegantly!

179 138: Reply by oceank8, May 13.; Thanks for the info. Yes I was referring to a wine that should be still but tastes fizzy, never a pleasurable experience.

872 1208: Reply by Philip, May 14.; yeah, the "lactic acid fermentation" sounds like when milk gets fizzy, which is also a pretty gross thing

117 176: Reply by RBoulanger, May 20.; I tried this with saran wrap and a pitcher. I poured a glass of corked wine into a glass as the control. I then poured the rest of the bottle into the pitcher and put crumpled up balls of Saran wrap (plastic wrap) into the pitcher. After some stirring and sitting for 20 minutes, the plastic wrap treated wine was clearly better than the control glass... but it still wasn't pleasant enough to avoid the sink drain. It sounds this is ripe for more vigorous testing with other plastics.

To answer Ocean's original question, I believe the TCA is binding to the plastic - so you are actually taking the offending chemicals out.

The fizzy wines are usually suffering from VA - volatile acidity. Sometimes it goes away with 20 minutes of aeration... and other times it doesn't.

179 138: Reply by oceank8, May 20.; Good test. At least we have a shot at saving a corked wine. And I will definitely be more patient with my fizzy wines next time and let them aerate more, thanks for the tip.

872 1208: Reply by Philip, May 20.; Ocean, I used that! As soon as i found a bad bottle i was in such a rush to tip it away, i now always leave it around for a day or two, just in case, whatever was wrong with it dissipates. Usually, i still end up tossing it away, but there's the odd time when it turned out ok after some time to breathe