For The Love Of Port

I was opening a bottle of Calem's LBV 2003 and was met by a not too nice smell. Still, I was curious to taste it and did so and it tasted as expected - bad. About the same as corked red wine. I looked at the cork and saw that it must have been leaking. It was also a bit wet around the neck. It looks like this:



It appears that a small crack of some sort had led a small amount of the port out of the bottle and may have caused oxidation for some time, hence the bad smell and taste. At least that's what I expect has happened.

Now, how often does this happen to (young) port? I assume it's a rare problem.

It is certainly rare with a typical Port cork, although I have not seen many T-closure Port leaks either. There seems to be a strata in that cork (a flaw) which permitted this to take place. If it was a recent purchase and you returned it to the retailer, you'd get a new bottle in exchange. If you drank it, well then

An interesting case that raises another question in my mind:

Why do T-corks very rarely leak when compared to the driven corks used in bottle aged ports?

It would be easy to say it is because the vast majority of them are pulled within 1 or 2 years of bottling but not always. I have had many T-corked ports that were 20, 30 or more years old and have never encoutered a T-cork leaker.

Do they use a different quality cork for these or have I just been lucky?

Derek

Roy Hersh wrote:If it was a recent purchase and you returned it to the retailer, you'd get a new bottle in exchange. If you drank it, well then

It was undrinkable. Luckily it was fairly new and I got a new bottle in return.

Derek T. wrote:Why do T-corks very rarely leak when compared to the driven corks used in bottle aged ports?

It would be easy to say it is because the vast majority of them are pulled within 1 or 2 years of bottling but not always. I have had many T-corked ports that were 20, 30 or more years old and have never encoutered a T-cork leaker.

Do they use a different quality cork for these or have I just been lucky?

I have had bottles which have leaked while stored and when I opened them I found that they had been sealed with a T cork. I suspect that failure in the cases that I found was from the cork being undersized for the bottle rather than a flaw in the strata of the cork itself. Perhaps the fact that the top of the cork in a T cork is glued or otherwise sealed on to a plastic top means that in most cases these flaws in the fabric of the cork are effectively selaed off from being able to create a leak.

Alex

Well well. The new bottle's cork was ok, but it appears as if Calem's having general problems with their cork supplier. The bottle was $15 so I guess that's what to expect from such a cheap LBV.


(the one to the right is just for purpose of the example)