One of my favorite cuvees is up for auction soon, but in a Jereboam. Any ideas on how to rebottle it in 750s or magnums without hastening its development/demise?
In theory, the wine must remain under inert gas at all times to maintain its integrity. If that is successful, the life span of the wine may be reduced some because it is in the smaller bottle.
There are some wineries in France that will re-cork your older wines, but I imagine they have equipment designed for that purpose. There may be other wineries in the US that have the capability of completing the task for you, but I have a sneaky suspicion they won’t guarantee the wine’s integrity.
If I were going to attempt it , I would try it out on a low priced wine first, knowing the Jereboam can remain as is for years so here’s my WAG on how to do it.
I’d get a large number of cans of Private Preserve, a Coravin with lots of cartridges, a cork press, bottles and corks. Lay the Jereboam down in a rack and insert the Coravin, hoping the needle is long enough, strong enough and will clear the bottle neck. Attach a sterile plastic tube to the Coravin’s spout that is long enough to reach within 1/8 th inch from the bottom of the bottle so it is below the punt. Next, fill the bottom of the bottle with Private Preserve, at least 10 short bursts to create a layer of gas at least 1/2 inch. You can’t see it but more is better than less. Using the Coravin, fill the bottle to the appropriate level. Remove the tube and cork.
Judging by the number of cartridges we use at the store, you may need 10 or more to empty that Jereboam.
A lot of cost either way.
It may well be that if a Coravin will work in the Jereboam, you can just leave the wine in the bottle and revisit it with the Coravin over the years and not do a redneck re-bottle routine.
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If it has any age on it you’ll need to top off the wine in each 750 with a sulfer added neutral wine (helps the wine recover faster after reconditioning, and I think adding so2 to old wines is a bad idea unless you like killing your wines…). But if you don’t know exactly what you are doing and have a bottling machine, why do something that will almost definitely kill the wine.
Don’t forget something inert like nitrogen to envelop all of the wine transferring too… and make sure those bottles are cleaned and wiped like a mofo that you are switching it to…and remember corks need some time to set after they’re inserted.
Let me reiterate, this is a bad idea.
If you are seriously considering this, the way to do it would be the same as how home winemakers transfer from carboy to bottle. You need plastic tubing, bottles, fresh corks, a corker, means of sanitation and maybe potassium metabisulfite if you want to add SO2.
In short, sanitize everything. Place source on a table or other high place. Insert tubing and be sure not to push out wine from the source bottle. You may not be able to put it all the way down initially. Pull a vacuume to start a siphon. Most just use their mouth to get it started which for a bottle this small shouldn’t be a problem. Put the end of the siphon in the bottom of the receiving bottle so that splashing is minimized. The tricky part is getting the fill to the right level. It’s easy to spill over and lose wine if you don’t stop the flow early enogh or stop too soon and leave too much head space after you remove the tube. With the tube pinched off move to the next bottle and release the flow and the siphon should start again. Repeat for the remaining bottles. Then you need to cork them. I left out adding SO2 since I don’t know the easiest way to do it for what you want to do. Normally, I would add SO2 to the source bottle and stir to integrate and leave the bottle 24 hours before bottling. You don’t want to do that with this wine so maybe you add to each bottle before siphoning the wine in.
You still risk some O2 pickup and changing the character of the wine. However, what I would think is the real issue is the cost of the equipment to do this is likely not justified for one time use for six bottles.
Considering that 3L s typically sell at a premium to 4 bottles, this seems unwise. Have a party!
trade someone for 750s or sell at auction and buy 750s–the premium for selling the large format will make the auction buy a wash.
Thanks for the detailed, thoughtful replies. I now cannot imagine re-bottling it myself, but perhaps a make-your-own-wine outfit could do it for me.
Or, if I can get it for a good price, I could donate it to a worthy-cause auction, where perhaps a group would buy it, with the condition that I get a couple of glasses.
Happy ending!
Just goes to show, friends don’t let friends rebottle jeroboams of fine wine!
#Falltacular2018