Have you got that much-loved bottle of wine that you’ve been saving for the perfect dinner party?
Well, picture this. You’re opening the bottle, and all of sudden, before your very eyes, the cork crumbles into pieces.
You’re left with a bottle of wine with crumbling cork floating around inside, ruining the experience of trying the new bottle of wine.
Now, don’t fret too much! You can still drink the wine if the cork has crumbled into the bottle.
Three are lots of ways in which you can save wine in this situation and remove the cork from the bottle. Read on for more information!
What Is The Best Way To Remove Broken Cork From A Wine Bottle?
If your cork has broken in the bottle of wine, you don’t need to worry too much. There are lots of ways to remove the broken bits of cork from the wine to make it drinkable again.
It is an instinct to just push the rest of the cork into the bottle once some has broken off into the bottle. However, it is a good idea to avoid this.
We recommend that you continue to remove the cork from the bottle with a corkscrew as carefully as possible, to prevent any more cork from falling into the wine.
After you have managed to remove the cork from the bottle, you should strain the wine in order to remove all of the bits of cork from the bottle of wine.
Other Ways To Remove Cork From Your Wine
The most obvious solution to removing wine from the liquid in a wine bottle is the strainer technique explored above.
However, there are other ways to get rid of the floating bits of cork in the bottle.
One great way to clear the floating bits of cork is by using a thin cloth. This is very useful as it gets rid of the main bits of cork that are floating around.
You should use a funnel and cover it with the cloth in order to pour the wine into another container. The liquid will pass through the cloth, but the bits of cork will not.
The process of filtering out the wine will speed up the process of oxidation. When this happens, you may lose some of the flavors and aromas in the wine.
To avoid this, you could consider just filtering the liquid directly into the glass as you require it. We recommend to have some plastic glasses in case your cork breaks. This way you don`t have to use your best wine glasses for filtering the wine.
Why Do Wine Corks Crumble Or Break?
Storage
When you store your wine in a cabinet or a wine rack, the wines are often stored horizontally.
The bottles of wine are often stored in this way because of practical reasons as well as aesthetic ones – a sideways wine rack does look great!
When they are stored in this way, it means that the cork is always wet.
If you stand a bottle of wine upright, the wine is normally just below the cork, whereas if you keep the bottle on its side, the wine will cover the cork.
When the wine doesn’t touch the cork, you will find that the cork will dry out over time, and pieces of the cork will crumble off.
This is when you will notice parts of your cork floating around in your wine.
When you use a corkscrew to get the cork out of the wine, it will dislodge the dry pieces of cork and put them down into the liquid.
Age
The age of the wine also affects whether or not the cork is likely to break when the bottle is opened. If the cork is older, it is much more likely to crumble than a newer bottle of wine.
Tools
The tool that is used to open the bottle of wine is also very important. Corkscrews that have a sharp end are more likely to cut through the cork and cause it to break up into pieces.
Use a smoother corkscrew if you don’t want the cork to be broken.
Common Misconceptions
It is a common misconception that a ‘corked’ bottle of wine is the same as a bottle of wine that has cork floating inside it. This is not the same thing.
If a cork crumbles into a bottle of wine this is just some cork floating in the wine.
A bottle of wine that is corked is a different thing entirely. When a bottle of wine is corked, it has a cork taint in it.
This is when a chemical that is sometimes found in corks gets into the wine.
If there is no trace of this chemical in the cork in the first place, then it doesn’t matter whether the cork breaks or not, your bottle of wine will not be corked.
When a bottle of wine is corked, it will taste off and it likely won’t be drinkable.
What Is Cork Made Of?
Cork is a very important part of the wine experience as it is such a big part of the experience of wine.
Lots of corks have been replaced by screw caps in recent years, but the cork will never stop bringing a large part of the wine culture.
Synthetic Corks
Recently, corks made of plastic have been used in some wines. These corks are good because they won’t crumble and they also won’t cause the wine to be corked due to a chemical reaction.
Give synthetic corks a try if you fancy a change!
Final Thoughts
A broken wine cork is not a sign that the wine is undrinkable. Let’s put a cork in this discussion and conclude.
You can drink the wine that a cork has crumbled in, but you might want to drain it first so that you don’t end up swallowing all of those little bits of cork.
That bottle of wine that you’ve been waiting to drink isn’t ruined by a bit of crumbling cork so just give it a little drain and enjoy!
