Cork Breath

One of the great things about the internet is the ease with which you can access quality information. As a wine producer, often you don't have time to go flicking through journals and trade publications in trying to find a piece of info pertinent to your particular query at that moment in time.

Now most of us defer directly to that most convenient tool, the search engine. Bang, pow, and ten seconds later we have a range of links from which to choose.

As a result, the quality of the material available seems to grow exponentially year after year. A great resource is , where some highly switched on people post switched on articles.

One that caught our eye this week is from Richard Grant Peterson Phd, formerly of Beaulieu Vineyards in California. Peterson wrote this article dispelling the well worn myth that 'corks breathe'.

It is an excellent read and one that destroys the conveniently romantic ideal that corks allow air to pass through them, thus assisting in the aging process of wine. Peterson makes the point that corks are actually impervious to air, and that the only passage of air into or out of a bottle is between the interface where cork meets glass.

He also makes another interesting observation about the effect of the compression of the cork whilst it is being inserted into the bottle, and the consequence of the exhalation of air trapped in cork cell molecules on post bottling sulfur levels.

A great read, a little technical but not too hard to grasp, and yet again another great find from our friend, the internet.


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