@RichardFlack posted a question I have wondered about myself. Do wax capsules have a benefit?
I found a nice paper of which I post the main conclusion below.
It is actually a nice read and I recommend following the link and read the whole paper. Excellent study in which they investigated the effect of wax on Oxygen ingress in bottles with different types of cork closures.
“The results demonstrated that waxes and resins have oxygen barrier properties which differ according to their chemical composition. For their application as overcapping materials, whatever the type of stopper considered, if the stopper has a lower permeability to oxygen than the wax and a surface treatment that effectively limits the transfer at the glass/cork interface, the wax will play a more aesthetic than functional role.”
I thought it is a nice article with some good graphics as well.
They even compare wax types. Specialist wine wax is the best… Beeswax not so much.
Of course we don’t know if you have a cork that fails after some time, the wax will still be sufficient. Maybe wax can fail as well… Permeable microfractures in wax, who knows.
My personal opinion on wax. I like it when you are in the garden drinking wine and need some fire starter.
Meh. Modern closures like DIAM aren’t perfect either. The proof is in the pudding. Producers that don’t have issues are doing it right and that can come via both natural cork or modern closures.
I had a Fabio Gea wine a few years back that had wax over a glass stopper. No indication that there wasn’t cork under that wax. The wax itself was soft and pliable, so rather than taming it off, I went straight in with a corkscrew. It took me longer than it should have to realize I wasn’t getting anywhere.
