I hate transporting old wine but our wine group demanded an old musigny and I reluctantly took a Leroy Musigny 1949 from the cellar in Meursault and placed it in my wine case (a specially constructed heavy shipping case with high density foam, special locks etc.). I checked it in as fragile and avoided the bump of the normal luggage and once home in Australia (24 hour flight) I inspected the wine which had leaked about 5 mls from a reasonably high neck. After a few days of worrying I called my winemaker mate David Lloyd who dropped by for an argon gas sparged, diam cork recork with a dose of S02 and topped up with 8 ml of Jadot 1997 Musigny. We tasted about 8 ml which was still in good shape. Ripe but with a slight volatile edge but very drinkable. Impossible to tell if it was better before the flight or not. I hope I have saved it and if people are interested will report back when we open it in a few months on whether I can perceive any spoilage from the recorking experience.
My plan pending a success for this bottle is to always recork old burgundy before savage travel.
I’d thought Dave was in Europe at the moment. Must have been a long round trip for the re-bouche!!
I’ve heard all the arguements both ways on re-corking but am not sure I’m that opposed to it. Especially if done at the winery and topped up with the same wine. Seems to make sense. A lot of folks I know in Burgundy do just this.
I’m curious as to why you decided to add the Jadot Musigny. If you are planning to drink the wine in short order rather than cellaring for another decade+, why go to the trouble of adding a different wine? 5ml doesn’t seem like significant loss to change the wine or surface area for oxidation, particularly with the addition of argon. I’m interested to read the final tasting note!
The top up which as you point is almost immaterially small was on the advice of my winemaker friend. Having not done this before there was no other logic.
This was an old wine with an old cork. The corks shrink and are often only effectively sealed by a glue of tartrate and dried wine sediment. Mechanical shock can break that seal. The wine did transfer from one plane to another in dubai but the case is heavily insulated so any temperature change would have been gradual. Other wines in the same case were ok.
I don’t like travelling with old wine either, but it seems to me that recorking in this manner kills the wine, though not stone dead. It is possible for them to recover given a few years, but given that the best thing to do with an old wine after arrival is to leave it for a few years anyway I don’t see much point. I have bought a lot of old burgundy in my time and what I learnt was that one’s instinct to drink it soon before it got any older was quite the wrong thing to do. Let it settle and become quite clear, which can take a very long time, chill it right down, pull the cork carefully,put in a new cork, chill again for a good few hours then decant off the sediment introducing as little air as possible. Return to the bottle, seal again and take it to the final destination. More often than not one will be amazed.
Recorking as you describe it sounds like the right idea. Just pulling the old cork and replacing it more or less immediately will not cause any oxidation, especially if a touch of SO2 is added (but just the slightest amount!). The 8ml of younger Musigny will have no effect on the other 742ml of wine , and it is better than having 8ml of fresh air trapped in the old bottle. With something younger, it probably wouldn’t be a concern, but with a '49 Burg, I would avoid that small extra air being trapped inside…
Maybe a drop in atmospheric pressure, caused by the altitude, caused the leakage?
Look forward to hearing how the wine went Anthony. Shannon from RareWineDinners gets most of his really old stuff wax sealed before shipping in reefers from Europe to Aus. Might have worked here?
, and it is better than having 8ml of fresh air trapped in the old bottle. With something younger, it probably wouldn’t be a concern, but with a '49 Burg, I would avoid that small extra air being trapped inside…