I may just double decant into a completely different bottle - but that would mean a trip to Trader Joe’s for some of their finest $2 wine! ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
Take a slightly damp paper towel, and wrap it around the top of the capsule. Then, lightly tap around the top of the capsule with the handle of a knife, or other dull object. This will crack most of the wax from the glass, and most of it will come off in the damp paper towel. If you know that you need a wine ahead of time, you can also turn the bottle upside down, which gets more wax in the towel, and less on the countertop/floor. I’d do this a week or two ahead of time and then stand the wine up so that the sediment has time to settle before decanting.
Hmmm… A known wine reviewer snuck a bottle of 2BC Chard into a blind tasting, it ended up being voted Number 1 by all in attendance. You can only imagine their shock when he took the bag off, their highly prized and rated wines were voted losers by THEM. No ML on the wine, either.
2BC its actually way better than many much more expensive wines (can you say “animal labels”). Although this shows how bad the market place is. 2BC Cab and Chard are serviceable, Syrah is a major crap, have not had Merlot.
The merlot made my wife puke. the chard is drinkable if it is cold enough. I’d like to know who “all in attendence” were. There is an article I read somewhere about el cheapo wines being favored by groups of people over much much more expensive wines but then the article went on to say how nearly all of the people in the test groups had very little wine experience. For those people, simple fruity wines are usually where they start before they learn what a real wine with structure is actually like.
I have to agree that Dunn wax is a bitch and will crumble. I’m thinking, if you can, decant it out of the bottle and then run the neck under hot water and go to town cleaning the thing up and then decant back into the bottle.
Honestly, be easy on yourself and just decant into another bottle completely (talk about fooling people) and cork with a non-Dunn marked cork! And just bring the other bottle if you want to show it off and save yourself the headache of the wax.
After Action Review:
After decanting the wine, I ran hot water over the wax to see if it would be more pliable. No such luck, it was softer but still wanted to break into a million pieces and leave a residue. The next step was a candle, which worked much better. I slowly warmed one section at a time till it started to look ‘molten’, and then used a paper towel to wipe-off the wax. It took about 20 minutes but this method worked very well. In the end, the bottle looked like wax was never used, which was exactly what I wanted!
Thanks again to everyone for their help! The wine showed very well next to a Screagle and Harlan blind - some actually rated it better than the Harlan! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
What vintages for all of these?
2003 Screagle
2004 Harlan
2002 Dunn Howell
2002 Peter Michael Les Pavots
Notes should be up soon (most likely on the other board) - It was great because all four of us had never had the Screagle/Harlan/Peter Michael, and tasting everything blind was humbling.
Great lineup. how long did you decant the Dunn howell?
I’ve had a couple of 04 Dunn Howell so far and the second time we had it we decanted it for 12 hours, then back into the bottle and it was actually quite good.
Just went through this opening a '92 Dunn Howell Mtn. What a f*cking pain in the ass. I warmed the capsule up under some hot water in the sink, and then took the knife of my waiter’s corkscrew to chip away at the top of the capsule (there was no way the worm would penetrate the top of that wax, LOL). Then, with cork exposed, I went to remove the cork . . . and it completely disintegrated. So I spent the next five minutes removing bits and pieces of the cork, managing ultimately to get 99% of the damn cork out. Then decanted.
Opened a '92 Dunn Napa, also. It’s cork was perfect! An no pain-in-the-ass wax (concrete?) capsule, to boot! Well report back later whether the wines were any good. Dinner at my best friend’s/family’s place later today, grilled bison tenderloin and mako shark.
For the hard wax capsules such as Dunn uses, someone, I think it was Darrel Corti, taught me to hold the bottle over the sink and gently tap the wax with the back side of a spoon repeatedly. After a few blows, the wax shatters and drops off. Did this in the last 2 weeks to a 1960 Quinta do Noval Nacional and a 1977 Delaforce Vintage Port. The wax dropped off easily. (and the 77 was better than the 60 Nacional.)
Bob, I will give that a try. Both wines were very tasty, btw. The Napa had more tobacco/leather notes, but the fruit was nice with both and the tannins very resolved.
Port Tongs?
I just fought with a '10 Lapierre wax capsule and lost. I usually just drive the corkscrew through it, partially remove the cork, then clean around it before finishing uncorking. It wouldn’t work this time, and the chemical smell of the wax made me worry for the wine. I tried chipping, heating with water, scraping with a knife. I ended up with a bottle neck smeared with wax, and the damn stuff stuck under my fingernail. Should have just ignored it. To top it off, the wine is not in a good place and showed poorly.
I recently had a wax capsule destroy an auger on the Rabbit, bent it like it was a noodle! I would like to hear from Sommeliers on how they deal with this tableside, or do they handle it in the back.
I retract the last sentence; this was nicer on day one, and gorgeous on day two. The wax still sux.
Bob, I just got around to trying this, on a '90 and a '92 Dunn Howell Mountain. Worked like a charm. Thanks!!! Had also to use an Ah so opener to remove those corks - worked entirely on the '92 and about 95% on the '90.
Slide a long pour spout into the mouth of the bottle, then roll the bag up a little higher to cover the wax completely. Do this to all the bottles. No muss, no fuss and No one will be the wiser.
Damn, thanks for the memories. That was a great tasting…hard to believe it was almost a decade ago.