crowned cork

[Glenn Wright]

My name is Glenn Wright and after spending an enjoyable evening of drinking port in Long Island with one of Roy's buddies I have embarked on a vintage port journey.

After reading the 13 favorite vintage ports section I bought a bottle of 66 Grahams and a 77 Taylor Fladgate. The Taylor arrived from K&L Wine Merchants with a crowned cork above the top of the bottle by about 1/4 inch.

Should I return this bottle? Any recommendations for on-line sites to buy well preserved vintage ports?

Glenn

[Moses Botbol]

The cork is sticking out 1/4 on an inch? That is not good on a top price port you paid from K&L. They should've stated that in the description. I would return it if they more in stock, ask for a discount, or ask for discount on the next bottle. That bottle could be baked or suffered from some sort temperature swing for the worse if that is the case.

[Andy Velebil]

Tough call. I've seen a lot of 1977, 1983, and 1985 Taylors VP bottles that have what looked like crowned corks. I don't know why that is....maybe an issue with the bottling line machine, bottle neck diameter, etc. But they look like the cork has pushed up on the capsule and the capsule ends up with a rather large round hump to it. So far all the ones I've had have not shown any signs of being heat damaged. I've also spoken to another occassional poster here who has quite a lot of 70's Taylors bottles and his bottles all look like that.

Glenn,
Can you post a small picture of the top of the bottle?

[Moses Botbol]

Tough call. I've seen a lot of 1977, 1983, and 1985 Taylors VP bottles that have what looked like crowned corks.

Glenn,
Can you post a small picture of the top of the bottle?

That is true. A picture could speak volumes... Unfortunately, you'll have to remove the capsole to reveal what is truly going on with the cork, but 1/4" sounds like a lot.

[Glenn Wright]

Attached is the photo of the top of the 77 Taylor.

It might not be a 1/4 above the top of the bottle but it is certainly crowned.

Appreciate all of your feedback on this.


EDIT:
I had to delete your pic, the file was way too large.
Andy Forum Moderator.

[Moses Botbol]

unfortunately, I think you'll have to remove the foil. Is there anything sticky around the top? My first thought looking at the picture is that is not a big deal...

[Andy Velebil]

I resized the pic for you

[Andy Velebil]

based soley on the evidence of prior seepage (the stained seal) this looks to be heat damage and NOT normal Taylor rounded capsules that I've seen. I would send it back for a replacement, refund, etc.

[Moses Botbol]

Duhhhh, did not see the stained tag... Looks like heat damage to me. :help:

A little Douro bake...

[Roy Hersh]

Glenn,

Nice to have you join us. I saw our friend on Tuesday night and opened a young bottle of 2003 Pocas Vintage Port that I just happened to have with me. It was actually delicious and I gave Bob the 2nd half of the bottle to enjoy the next day when it had more time to further flesh out.

Call K&L tell them that you are not really happy with receiving a bottle in this condition and see what they'll do about it. They may refund your purchase, replace the bottle etc. Either way, whether this occured because of heat or being frozen, either way ... even though more than likely the Port will still drink well ... there should be some sort of restitution by the retailer.

Best regards and welcome to FTLOP.

Roy

[Jeffrey Karp]

HI Glenn,

I just opened a bottle of Fonseca 1970 last night that contained a profoundly crowned cork. I wasn't too too worried as I've experienced this many times with Taylor 1977s and they for the most part, were just fine as long as they weren't leakers. In your case, I would return the bottle as previously suggested for the aforementioned reasons.

Although my cork was crowned, the integrity of the cork and the seal was perfect. In fact I was actually able to pull out the driven cork in its entirety which is rare in and of itself but provided further support that the cork itself was fine (not a mushy cork) and also that the port hadn't leaked. In fact, there were no signs of leakage and the fill level was well into the neck. I would guess that this bottle probably froze at some point during its 36 years of cellaring. As for the port, it was a better bottle in some ways than my last Fonseca '70. It was "all there", absolutely sublime and as such seemingly unaffected by the crowning.

Let us know how your seller handles this issue. Welcome to the Forum.

Best regards,

Jeffrey Karp
Scottsdale, Arizona

[Nikolaj Winther]

Are we sure that this is due to increased heat? It would take a substantial increase in pressure to make a cork crown (unless the bottle is completely full. Then it's actually quite certain that it'll crown).

Do we see it on recent bottles?

I would suspect that, being produced in shabby Portugal in the 60's and 70's (and 80's), the procedure of corking a bottle was a bit casual - machinery not being up to date or whatever. This would mean that the corck was never level with the opening in the first place.

[Nikolaj Winther]

I was doing a bit of math on this one. If you want to double pressure, you have to double the temperature. The pressure in a bottle of port is 1 atm (approximation) and on a bottle it's the same. How warm is it when a bottle is corked? 20 degrees C? Let's say 15C. In order for it to increase the pressure to two atms. it has to be heated to 30C. How big is the surface of the cork-end? 3cm2? Then the pressure inside the bottle is pushing with the equivalent of 6 kg. And it's being pushed on the outside by 3 kg. I don't know with how much force I pull when opening a bottle of port (or wine), but I'm sure it's way over 10kg. Let's say 12 kg (4 atm) (i suspect it's much more). Then temperature is again doubled - 60C!!! Now we're reaching scalding temperatures.

I don't know what a prolonged applied (yet relatively low) pressure will do to a bottle. If it's kept at 30C for weeks and weeks, this may slowly squeese the cork - and once it's been pushed out a bit, the volume inside the bottle increases and the pressure drops.

N.B. My phycics may be way off. But it's an interesting question.

[Andy Velebil]

Nikolaj,

I'm not a chemist, but even I know that when most liquids (water, wine, Port, etc) heat up they expand. This causes the cork to get pushed out as the liquid inside the bottle is expanding. I am quite certain that bottle is heat damaged...how you ask? The combination of the pushed cork and a stained Selo tells me that this has seen some significant heat and while it got hot some of the wine was forced out of the bottle (Seepage).

I would suggest you try it yourself. Place a brand new bottle in the sun on a hot day and leave it there and you will see what happens. It doesn't always require a super hot day to do this. If the bottle has a really high fill level to begin with, as the wine starts heating up and expanding there is no where for it to go, except the only way it can....which is up through the cork. The only moveable part of a bottle of wine.

If I'm not mistaken, you live in a place that generally doesn't see 90-100+ degree temps (32-40 celcius) in the summer. Hotter places around the world really do have to worry about bottles getting too hot. I live in a dessert and have seen lots of heat damaged bottles and that picture is what they look like.

[Nikolaj Winther]

Hmm. Doing a bit of studying on the subject, I should stay away from degrees C and stick to Kelvin. So in order to increase the pressure in the bottle from one atmosphere to two, I should heat the air in the bottle from 15 degrees C (actually 288 degrees K) to 2*288 K = 576 degrees K = 303 degrees C!!!

What the hell is wrong with this ting?

[Nikolaj Winther]

I live in a dessert and have seen lots of heat damaged bottles and that picture is what they look like.

You live in a dessert!?! Is it something with pancakes?

Jokes aside. - No, we rarely see 100 degrees in the summer in Denmark, but I have a crowning Fonseca Guimaraens 1984. Oddly enough (and that's why I proposed the sloppy cork-job) it's from the same crate and the others (except one) were fine. Assuming they've been kept at the same temperature (if they're from the same crate, I say that's a strong affirmative) they would all be crowning, yet they're not. But working with "faulty" equipment could explain a crowning (not being a crowning at all, as it would never have been "in" properly).

[Andy Velebil]

I make killer pancakes...if you make it out to L.A. I'll make some for you

It is very possible for only one or two bottles of a case to show heat damage and the other bottles appear to be fine. if one or two bottles have a higher fill level than the others, it can show heat damage signs before the other bottles do. OR if one side of the case is facing the outside wall of the shipping truck and gets hotter than the inside part of the case .

[Glenn E.]

You wouldn't have to double the pressure to crown a cork... in fact just about any increase in pressure could - over time - cause the cork to crown. It takes significantly more pressure to remove a cork, but that's because you're trying to do it quickly. If you were willing to take a month to open a bottle, you could probably do it with just a pound or two hanging from the corkscrew. (This is making a huge number of assumptions about the quality of the cork, etc, but the basic truth remains.)

Also working against us is the fact that we store the bottles on their sides. We do it to keep the cork wet to help manage oxidation, but it has the side effect of ensuring that if there's a pressure increase for whatever reason, the only thing that can escape from the bottle is our precious port. Thus the seepage.

[Nikolaj Winther]

Hmm. But if it's true, that facing a certain way in a truck could make that much of a difference, then all my wines should be crowning by now, as they're not stored in heat- or moisture-controlled rooms plus the temperature fluctuates during seasons. Yet very very few of them do (I can actually only think of the one remaining Giumaraens 84).

[Glenn E.]

Well, the amount of pressure required varies greatly in no small part because the natural evaporation of the wine that soaks into the cork creates a rather effective adhesive, which you've probably noticed before while struggling to extract a recalcitrant cork.

There's really no formula that will tell you with certainty whether or not a crowned cork is a bad thing. That particular cork might have been loose and so it moved easily yet the Port is undamaged, while some other bottle that looks perfect might be heat damaged even though there's no external evidence.