Opa's Treasure Chest - Part II

I recently published a post about some rarities found in my late father-in-laws wine cellar. Well, I tried them. The first was a 1966 Riesling. The cork just crumbled and the contents of the bottle looked like Coke and went straight down the sink. The second bottle was a 1971 Trockenbeeren Auslese. The cork was also in a bad state and the contents was also the colour of Coke - but it was just about drinkable. Something like an old port. But after a few sips that had to go in the sink too. The last bottle was a 1976 Riesling Spatlese. The cork was in a very good condition but the wine was pure vinegar - in the sink too. 

A real shame, such good wine: once. The moral is - German wine does not keep, except the heavy sweet ones like Eiswein (the 2007 should be good) or Trockenbeeren Auslese. Also the average bottles do not have good quality corks. In the last few years I was getting a high proportion of 'corky' wine. Now nearly all vintners have moved to plastic corks, crown or screw tops. I was dubious at first but the plastic corks are in fact very good, and I still have the fun of using a cork screw. The only drawback I have noticed is that the large, table mounted cork screws with a large hand lever that you see in wine pubs have real problems.

Another trend is to use glass stoppers, which are rather cute. There is a ring made of some special plastic that keeps the seal intact. Both plastic corks and the ring on the glass stoppers are meant to be 'taste neutral'. The test will be seeing how the wine keeps over some years when plastic is used.