Gadgets For Recorking wine

Actually, there are specially designed capsules that allow for gas exchange and they are in fact used on wines designed to age. My BIL uses them on the high end wines he produces, but everything else just gets the regular caps that don’t allow any gas exchange.

And technology kills the last possible reason to use corks. Good for the consumer, but what about the poor cork farmers?

One of the local (tiny) wineries here has a system where you can buy reusable bottles and then pay for a refill. The bottles have ceramic corks on a hinge with a little rubberized washer around it that locks into place on the top of the bottle. When they fill them up, they use a product like this. It’s basically just canned nitrogen. A few taps into the top of the bottle and it forces out the air, then seal it up quickly.

We talked to one of the owners about it, and he says it’s way better than the vacuum corks. You do have to continually buy more of it, though.