Removing A Wax Capsule

[alan_weinberg]

there’s all kinds of different wax. The wax is very brittle on Dunn and Raveneau, soft on Colin-Morey. Tapping with the handle end of a butter knife works well for most types, drilling through the wax w a corkscrew also good. Leroy’s wax on older bottles cracks if you just stare hard at it.

[B_Buzzini]

@M. Sai

Damn, thanks for the memories. That was a great tasting…hard to believe it was almost a decade ago.

That was fun! Yes, been TOOOO long…we need another get together. I still have one bottle of 03 Screagle left!



BIG BOY TASTING - Buzzini House (3/2/2009)

The starters…

• 2005 Dönnhoff Oberhäuser Leistenberg Riesling Kabinett - Germany, Nahe
  Beautiful sweet apples, pear, citrus, honey…firm with a crisp minerality, flint, white flowers. Complex…could drink all day long! (93 pts.)
• 2005 Selbach-Oster Bernkasteler Badstube Riesling Kabinett - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer
  Sweet white peach, apples, stones, lemon honey, little spice. Nice and creamy, yet crisp minerals. Not as complex as the Donnhoff…but again, super tasty. (90 pts.)
• 2003 Hartford / Hartford Court Chardonnay Stone Côte Vineyard - USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Coast
  Cool green tinge color. Reminded me of a Pride Mtn Top / Marcassin Chard. Wonderful richness, smokey hazelnut, honey butter, balanced wood spices, little green apple to cut it up nicely. This was good! (93 pts.)
• 2005 Sine Qua Non The Petition - USA, California
  This one really exploded after warming to room temp…gushing with tropical fruits, smoky hazelnut, ginger cookie, honeysuckle florals galore! Big and rich, yet balanced well with citrus acidity and minerals…spicy and exotic. The best! Thnks D. (96 pts.)
• 2000 Joseph Drouhin Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru - France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru
  This kept getting better as the day went on. Smooth cherry, strawberry, plum fruit…earth tones, dried tea leaves, tobacco spice, still pretty tight. Would have liked to just sit down with this one…but there were too many other wines to get to! Should get even better. +pts (91 pts.)

Big Boy blinds…

• 2002 Peter Michael Les Pavots - USA, California, Sonoma County, Knights Valley
  Dark in color. Started out with some dried herbs, a little worcestershire…but later opened to deep spice, leather, dark berry fruit. Big full bodied wild berry, cherry spice, dusty cedar, kirsch liqueur, acacia flower. Well integrated, changed all day…the only wine of the 4 that showed some “Bordeauxness”. Wonderful! (94 pts.)
• 2002 Dunn Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain - USA, California, Napa Valley, Howell Mountain
  Dark in color. A little shy at first…nose of sweet berries, cocoa bean, caramel, slight redwine vinegar. Deep dark flavors, not as intense, but well balanced. A little coaxing brought out super Cab flavors, polished…still tight. “Sleeping Giant” is what I wrote down. I thought this was the Harlan? ++pts (94 pts.)
• 2004 Harlan Estate - USA, California, Napa Valley
  Dark in color. GORGEOUS nose of deep dark spice, black berry, chocolate, floral spice. WOW, powerful spice, tannins in the mouth. The most lively of the 4 wines…complex, chocolate brownie, white pepper, florals. This wine kept getting better and better, showing true power and complexity. I thought it was the Dunn because of tannins and power and how young it seemed. Shocked(but thankful) to see it was the Harlan. My first Harlan…and it delivered! (97 pts.)
• 2003 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon - USA, California, Napa Valley, Oakville
  Ok…first ever! Surprisingly, all 4 of us picked this out as the Eagle. You never know…when blind tasting! This wine was all about balance and finesse. The most complete wine of the night. Gorgeous cookie/fruitcake spice, cassis, dusty cedar, cherry cordials, black olive…complex and silky smooth. Sweet and dark fruited, with a nice dryness…lots of sediment when decanted. True joy to drink…but bested by the Harlan. (96 pts.)

“Hey, lets open this”…

• 1968 Inglenook Pinot Noir Red Pinot - USA, California, Napa Valley, Rutherford
  What a shocker! Alive and SUPER tasty! First thing I noticed was a funky smoky electrical fire thing going on…not off putting, but intriguing. Tons of raspberry, plum, rhubarb fruit…still sweet…complexities of dusty dirty spice, soy sauce, old leather, potpourri florals, wet leaves. Wonderful alive crancherry acidity…amazing balance. Who would have thought? This wine almost stole the show from the Screagle/Harlan and others in the day…Great wine!!! (94 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

[Chris_L1]

I don’t like the wax capsules at all. I’ll have to try warm water next time…

[Scott_G_r_u_n_e_r]

A careful hand with a pastry torch works to soften a bit

[Michael_Martin]

I poke, screw and pull. The cork I mean.

[Merrill_Lindquist]

@Terry H a r r i s

@Bob Foster

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 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.

Birth year wines, Terry?

[Drew_Goin]

I have a few wines that appear to have been very thinly coated in paraffin wax.

I can’t believe how much of a PITA it is to deal with this stuff! I will try the “hot water” technique suggested above.

The coating is not uniform, and there is often a small, uncoated area around the lip of the bottle rim, leaving a tiny gap between the cork and the bottle.

I hope the hot water doesn’t negatively affect the cork when I use the corkscrew afterwards…

[David_Glasser]

Drew, the hot water won’t affect the cork.

[Jayson_Cohen]

In practice, did you take the wax off the Dunn in advance and stand the bottle up for a while before decanting or was it a pop and pour?

The issue for me with old reds under wax is when they need a decent off sediment. I’m blanking on the wine now, but within the last couple years I cracked the wax off a bottle a few weeks in advance so I could stand the bottle up for decanting. I find wax hard to remove without shaking up sediment.

[GregT]

The hot water won’t affect the cork. If you’re careful, you can use a blowtorch. But unless you want to completely remove the wax for some reason, you can just chip it off like recommended earlier. If blind tasting though, I’d just put the wine in a different bottle and not worry about it. It’s what you’d do with a CdP or other distinguishing bottle. We used to keep 12 identical bottles just for that purpose.

[Merrill_Lindquist]

@GregT

The hot water won’t affect the cork. If you’re careful, you can use a blowtorch. But unless you want to completely remove the wax for some reason, you can just chip it off like recommended earlier. If blind tasting though, I’d just put the wine in a different bottle and not worry about it. It’s what you’d do with a CdP or other distinguishing bottle. We used to keep 12 identical bottles just for that purpose.

Decanting into a set of standard Bordeaux bottles is what we used to do. Unused glass from the bottling line made this very easy.

[Terry_H_a_r_r_i_s]

@Merrill Lindquist

@Terry H a r r i s

@Bob Foster

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 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.

Birth year wines, Terry?

Nope. Daughter and SIL both have some years on those vintages. The '92 was nice, but the '90 was corked. Caught just a slight whiff of it when first decanted . . . but once in the glass it took over. That one went down the kitchen sink drain. Bummer.

[Al_Osterheld]

Takes a while, but you can get hard shellac type “wax” off chipping away as described above. I managed to remove every trace of it from a bottle of Puffeney Trousseau I took to the winery for blind tasting at the end of the day.

-Al

[Blake_Brown]

Some good recs here. I`ve had so many TOUGH wax capsules and I thought the only way to deal with them was just to saber the bottles.