On Nov 13, 2:19 pm, (Doug Bashford) wrote:
> I seem to have a cork failure disease.
>
> I made 30 gals of extreme elderberry wine ten years ago.
> I still have more than a case left.
>
> It was designed for maxed-out alchohol, I got that and
> extreme bouquet, and very sweet, with high natural tannins.
> Excellent for a sweet!
>
> Storage has been at room temps, mostly horizontal, but
> some vertical time, and some temps occasionally over 85F
> due to lifestyle irregularities.
>
> I opened a bottle last night.
> I chose that bottle cuz the cork was half stained, figured
> now or never. The stained part was damp and crumbly,
> and almost spongy, it was not a surface stain.
>
> The wine seemed like it had deriorated. It had lost
> that extreme bouquet and fruitiness, thus some complexity
> as the tannins and earthyness took the front seat.
> It had become a good junkyard wine. ...OK in that context,
> it seems twice as potent as whiskey on the rocks, my
> normal drink.
> The color was garnet, but I seem to remember ruby.
> If so, that suggests oxidation.
>
> Many of the corks are showing those symptoms. Half?
> They seemed fine a year ago, the wine too.
> I have no idea why, I've never heard of this before.
> The sugar? The hi-alchohol? Contamination?
>
> Is this a common bug? How to prevent?
>
> Thanks!
> --Doug

Corks deteriorate over time, so what you see if pretty natural,
especially if you used regular quality corks. All red wines will turn
garent at some point if allowed to age that long and tannins will
mellow - again, that's just a natural progression. If the wine in the
bottles with corks that look ok tastes significantly better, you might
want to consider recorking those bottles - assuming all the corks came
from the same batchm the "good ones" won't probably last much longer.

Pp