Gregory Morrow wrote:


I read something a whiles back in I think the _New York Times_ about
a wine - tasting of wines that were 75 - 150 years old, these were
all from some winery in France. Apparently these old bottles of wine
were uncorked every decade/s or so as to put new corks in the
bottles...otherwise the corks would eventually crumble and the wine
would thus be exposed to air and eventually evaporate. Perhaps some
oenephile can jump in here and comment (I am not one)...


I'm no oenophile, but I do read the NY Times.
This recent article has more to do with fraud in auctions, and
collectability, than the wine itself.
I do seem to recall, but couldn't find, the article you referred to.

--
Dave S

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/di...pagewanted=all

Sniffing Out Fraud in the Bottle

"....And then you have devious practices of the wine producers
themselves. In the 19th century Burgundy producers were known to beef up
a bad vintage with a little wine from the Rhone or even from Algeria.
Today, some wine producers may take older bottles, which have lost wine
to evaporation, and top them off with a more recent vintage of the same
wine, effectively freshening up the bottle.

“A 1915, topped off with some 1985, is that a sin?” Mr. Meadows asked.
“Well, it raises the question of why you have a vintage. I’m personally
offended by that.”

A less pernicious form of topping off is called reconditioning. If a
producer has a supply of older wines, one bottle may be sacrificed to
top off the others. The producer may add a small dose of sulfur dioxide,
a stabilizer, and replace the old cork with a new one. Some producers,
like Domaine de Romanée-Conti, will stamp the cork “reconditioned.”
Purists might prefer not to have their bottles reconditioned but nobody
considers it unethical...."