Are you an Over, or Under, type when it comes to capsule cutting?

[M_Sai]

I don’t bother with the knife, just use the worm to slice the capsule at the bottom and then tear the entire thing off. I open a fair amount of old wines so this also gives me the chance to inspect the cork through the glass and decide if the Drand needs to be used.

[GregT]

So Chaad, FWIW I never imagined but there’s actually an etiquette to the thing.

Jacques Pepin was talking about it once and he mentioned that it was déclassé to remove the entire capsule, and even rude!

“WTF? Who cares?” I thought.

But it bugged me because I like him and don’t like foolish obsessions. Anyhow,apparently the proper way is over the annulus. Except I’m looking at a bottle right now that doesn’t allow that as the annulus goes straight up. So I cut below and it looks just fine.

[David_Wright]

I wonder how many of the folks who answered “above” did so because they use a foil-cutter gizmo that only cuts above (i.e., it is the default, and not really a choice)?

[John_Morris]

@GregT

So Chaad, FWIW I never imagined but there’s actually an etiquette to the thing.

Jacques Pepin was talking about it once and he mentioned that it was déclassé to remove the entire capsule, and even rude!

“WTF? Who cares?” I thought.

But it bugged me because I like him and don’t like foolish obsessions. Anyhow,apparently the proper way is over the annulus. Except I’m looking at a bottle right now that doesn’t allow that as the annulus goes straight up. So I cut below and it looks just fine.

When capsules were made of lead, leaving all but the top was a bad idea. So your friend Jacques is lucky he didn’t die of lead poisoning, I’d say.

Out of force of habit from the lead era, plus years of regular blind tastings, I take the whole thing off most of the time.

[andy_velebil]

@John Morris

When capsules were made of lead, leaving all but the top was a bad idea. So your friend Jacques is lucky he didn’t die of lead poisoning, I’d say.

Out of force of habit from the lead era, plus years of regular blind tastings, I take the whole thing off most of the time.

This thinking has always been lost on me. From what I recall in school, which isn’t much these days, wine would need to be in contact with the lead capsule a long time before it started to leach out and absorb some bad things from the capsule. Pouring it quickly over it and into a glass where there would be almost no contact to begin with shouldn’t have any measurable impact at all. Even if you cut it near the top, at best only a small amount of wine MAY touch the capsule at all.

[David_Wright]

But when the wine was poured over the lip of the bottle, where deposits from the foil capsule could have accummulated, both imported and domestic wines exceeded the standard for water, in some cases by up to three times.

Lead Levels in Many Wines Exceed U.S. Standards for Water (Published 1991)

[andy_velebil]

@David Wright

But when the wine was poured over the lip of the bottle, where deposits from the foil capsule could have accummulated, both imported and domestic wines exceeded the standard for water, in some cases by up to three times.

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/02/us/lead-levels-in-many-wines-exceed-us-standards-for-water.html

The results showed that domestic wines typically had far lower amounts of lead than imports. Indeed the average lead content for domestic wines fell below the Environmental Protection Agency’s current standard for drinking water.

See another reason to avoid Bordeaux

Ok, so just use a wet towel and wipe off the top of the bottle when you cut off the capsule and problem solved. Actually I wipe off the top of any old bottle regardless of what part (or all) of the capsule I remove.

EDIT:

And I love this part of the article

Some of the wines tested contained high levels of lead in samples drawn directly from the bottle, even when the bottles had no lead caps, but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms drew no conclusions about the source.

So you get lead levels in wines without any capsule and yet your final conclusion is that lead wine capsules are what is imparting lead into the wine. Oh and this is a 21 year old study. Curious as to what the full report reads.

“Although the lead levels found do not pose an immediate or short-term threat to consumers, we at F.D.A. are concerned with long-term exposure,”

Allow me to translate, “We have no idea really and are just guessing as usual since we have to say something”

In the meantime, consumers can reduce the risk of lead consumption by removing the foil and wiping the lips of wine bottles with a damp cloth or paper towel, he said.

All is OK again

[David_Wright]

The point, if you care to grasp it, is that historically there really was a sound reason for cutting the capsule below the annulus…

[chaad_thomas]

@David Wright

The point, if you care to grasp it, is that historically there really was a sound reason for cutting the capsule below the annulus…

I think that’s debatable. A reading of Lead Diseases: a Treatise, by Louis Tanquerel de Planches, whom has been called “the Columbus of lead poising”, and which was published in 1848, makes clear his finding that lead poisoning of workers who handled lead in a “fixed state” was very low, and that the real danger of lead toxicity arose from inhalation. It would seem, to me at least, given that workers who handled lead sheeting on a daily basis in the early 1800s weren’t falling out crazy, that the likelihood of ingesting enough particulate lead from the capsule remnants to be dangerous is vanishingly low.

Furthermore, as I noted initially and as GregT reports from the chef Jaques Pepin, the European tradition is to cut above the annulus, the Court of Master Sommeliers notwithstanding.

Reading from the Court’s service standards guidelines (for '11), they explain “The foil is cut at the second lip to prevent the wine from dripping behind the foil and contaminating future pours.” I can only guess at what that means, but the omission of lead toxicity, which would seem to be a pretty damn good reason for the practice, raises the question of what their concern is. Could it be they’re worried about acetobacter contaminating the wine behind the foil, and subsequently, future pours?

It seems equally likely that the practice arose from the exigencies of table side service, as I noted myself having discovered from working as a somm. It’s simply easier and more secure to cut under when you’re holding a bottle.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I do think there’s plenty of room for skepticism of the toxicity claim as a prime factor in where the foil is cut.

[John_Morris]

Andy – Some of the research back in the 90s showed that the first pour over the lip had the highest lead content and it declined with each pour, strongly suggesting that it was coming from lead residue on the bottle, so I don’t the evidence is so easily dismissed based on reading a brief news story.

FYI, the EU and California moved to ban lead capsules before the FDA.

[David_Wright]

@chaad thomas

@David Wright

The point, if you care to grasp it, is that historically there really was a sound reason for cutting the capsule below the annulus…

I think that’s debatable.

It’s pretty simple… cutting a lead capsule below the annulus reduces the chance of wine contacting lead while pouring. That is not debatable.

[chaad_thomas]

@John Morris

Andy – Some of the research back in the 90s showed that the first pour over the lip had the highest lead content and it declined with each pour, strongly suggesting that it was coming from lead residue on the bottle, so I don’t the evidence is so easily dismissed based on reading a brief news story.

FYI, the EU and California moved to ban lead capsules before the FDA.

There are two issues here:

1. lead capsules were an unnecessary risk; no doubt

2. was concern over lead poisoning the reason, in the past, that some (e.g. CMS) cut under the annulus?

Given the CMS was founded in '77, it seems entirely possible that lead concern was a factor, because that’s the period, if I recall rightly, that the whole lead awareness thing, e.g. in paint, was underway.

Surely the practice of cutting under existed before 1977, no?

[Dick_Krueger]

I usually cut above the the annulus, using a foil cutter. Sometime the capsule rips and i take the whole thing off.

[Dick_Krueger]

I usually cut above the the annulus, using a foil cutter. Sometime the capsule rips and i take the whole thing off.

[David_Bu3ker]

Get rid of the capsule. It’s useless ornamentation.

[brianmcbrearty]

@Mike Ritner

If I can just pull it off (80-90% of the time) I do that. If not, over the annulus every time. It never occurred to me to cut it under the annulus. I saw the under cut done in a restaurant once and I wondered what the logic was (it just seemed like unnecessary work); thanks for your explanation, Chaad.

ditto.

[J_Blum]

My double blade foil cutter trims it nicely right in the middle of the annulus so I picked “it depends”

[dr0ch]

@andy velebil

I usually cut it over as I think it has better presentation when serving it to others. If it’s just me at home, I usually just rip the thing off.

+1

[chaad_thomas]

@J. Blum

My double blade foil cutter trims it nicely right in the middle of the annulus so I picked “it depends”

Ha! I’ve never seen that! Gonna have to do a new poll now!
Thanks for the pic.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

Usually take the whole thing off.

Otherwsise, under.