Whatever method folks choose to use, it helps to score the wax around the top of the bottle with your foil cutter to provide a fracture or separation point for the wax–not deeply enough to make wax fly in all directions. I’ve found with doing this, heating the wax with warm washcloth (whether it’s new or old style wax), you can either drive the corkscrew through the wax, or peel/chip it off with the foil cutter or a knife (put your thumb against the top of the neck and draw the knife towards you with your fingers) without too much difficulty or mess.
contrarian here. Never been a problem for me. Drive corkscrew in, lift cork up half way, dust off the loose wax pieces, and then fully remove the cork. No problem
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I agree. I hate to admit it but I actually quite like wax capsules.
What’s telling is with our self-selected group of wine geeks posting on this thread:
- So many aren’t certain how to deal with these things.
- Many with a narrow set of data points appear overly confident the technique they use for a few producers’ wax translates to all.
- Many with a broader set of data points are aware of the spectrum of characteristics these “wax” capsules can have.
Even if we’ve learned various methods of dealing with the various wax types, with another set of alternative techniques that are best-under-the-circumstances… How does this play in Peoria? Stabbing injuries aside, you can imagine a lot of bad experiences leading consumers to not want to buy these after they’ve contended with opening one. Relying fully of market research that says how attractive these bottles appear is foolhardy. Is it a winery’s goal to make a lot of one-time sales, followed by a negative impression and never, ever buying their wines again?
Then, look at all the people making excuses. Aside from those whose only experiences are with less problematic wax, many of the rest are tolerating it because it’s wines they really like. A minor inconvenience. If you’re okay making an exception here and there because it’s a favorite producer or some wine you’d really like to try, what if this wasn’t just a tiny fraction of wines? Wouldn’t there be some point the mess and hassle would get old?
With premox, we know the main culprit is the winemaking, followed by the winemaking not adapting to winemaker changes in the vineyard and (allegedly) climate change. (Funny how many much warmer-to-hot regions make excellent, age-worthy “cool climate” Chardonnay.) So sure, DIAM and wax both add extra protection to extra-vulnerable wines. But note, many of the early premox wines were entire batches or whole ranges of releases, vintage after vintage, where the variability of cork only dictated how “pre” the premox was. The wines aren’t being made that vulnerable anymore, which is…winemaking choices. So, are all these producers who make a point of showing they use wax of DIAM really doing it out of necessity or is it a gimmick? Something to say they’ve fixed to problem and you can feel confident buying their wines…unlike some of the competition. Perhaps a little of both?
I guess people could do long-term experiments. Remove wax from one bottle you bought several of and keep it and a control bottle, for a comparison test in 15 years. Optimally you’d do that with several wines from a sampling of producers.
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This is what I do. I’ve probably only opened a dozen or so, but this method has caused zero problems foe me.
Had this conversation Thursday night. Puffeney are some of the worst. Last time I opened a was sealed bottle wound up with a hand cut since the rim cracked and I didn’t notice.
The problem I have with wax capsules is they get chipped a lot and the wax breaks off. I don’t mind
Opening the bottles the way others have mentioned.
Although the presence of a wax capsule will not deter me from buying a wine that I really badly want, it can definitely be a deciding factor if if I’m debating whether to buy a bottle or not. Such a mess to clean up - even with a sharp knife, I end up opening waxed bottles over the wastebasket to prevent the residue from going all over the place, and then pouring the wine through a decanter filter even if I am not decanting it.
Brewer-Clifton used to use a wax-look capsule that was much easier to remove neatly than the “real thing”; same with Belle Glos.
Also, even if waxed capsules aid against premox, why not just go with a screwcap?
The main “advantage” of wax is probably the aesthetic value.
But there are other points as well…
-It’s more environmentally friendly, especially if it can be sourced from locally made wax.
-It’s cheaper than foils as far as materials costs go… application is typically done by hand, and takes time, so labor costs might be higher
-It allows for precise color adjustment… as long as you have red, yellow, and blue wax and a small amount of white and black you can make just about any color imaginable, allowing for a fine tuning of packaging. This is especially helpful if you’re talking smaller lots of 100 cases or so… it’s very expensive to order custom color foils in very small quantities
I’ve never had any serious problems opening wax-finished bottles, but appreciate that some have had them.
wax is wonderful, even if only for the fact that it is far easier to deduce how a bottle was stored by looking at the condition of the wax. obviously there is no way to hide a slightly raised cork or seepage if the bottle has been waxed. if you like buying older vintages, a foil capsule can be quite deceptive as to the true storage conditions.
I think you’ve misunderstood my point. What happened was that the wines became more fragile (mostly due to winemaking choices, I agree, and I’ve written about what the changes were and when they happened in print) from the mid-1990s, thereby throwing variance in closure oxygen transmission rate (OTR) into heightened relief. Simultaneously, cork quality hit a nadir. So what with very robust wines of the '70s and '80s expressed as comparatively minor bottle variation became five bottles oxidized, three advanced, and four correct out of a case of 12.
Now, I would be the first to lament the winemaking changes that made the wines more fragile; and I tend to think that those winemaking changes, in addition to making more fragile wines, also made less interesting wines than what came before (at the time, they were described as “more elegant”). But it would be obtuse to deny that closure OTR is critical as to whether wines actually oxidize or not. Otherwise, DIAM and screw cap wouldn’t prevent oxidation as demonstrably as they do. After all, even an immensely fragile wine, stored under an impermeable screw cap, won’t oxidize as long as the seal holds. And to give you an idea of just how big the variations we’re dealing with are, we are talking about a factor of 50 difference between the lowest and highest OTR in a batch of expensive corks. That’s huge.
As for Chablis, I think they have fared better than the Côte de Beaune largely to do with less use oak: élevage is less oxidative there, and nor was the trend towards lower free sulfur such a thing as it was in the Côte de Beaune. But premox is still endemic in Chablis.
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I think people would be amazed how many bottles are sufficiently “non standard” to require custom capsules.
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Agree. Doesn’t present much of an issue. Only tricky part is getting the waiters friend to grip on the wax to pull the cork up a bit. Had a bit of an issue recently with a 2013 Liquid farm which had a round dome on the wax that had hardened a bit.
There are things that, imho, are fare more annoying than wax capsules. I’d gladly be willing to have all my wine sealed with wax if they came in Bordeaux size bottles.
I’m with you on that. While I’m firmly in the dislike wax camp, it’s a lesser evil compared to overweight bottles that don’t fit in my storage… which is about 2.5731 times more annoying than wax.
One of my favorite producers uses both wax and slightly oversized bottles and the latter is a much bigger pain. The only time the wax is really annoying is when I want to blind the wines, lol.
I’ll also add, I’m usually quite happy to get discounts on wines because the wax capsule is chipped. Fantastic!
As others have mentioned, I don’t mind a little extra ritual around removing the wax before drinking the wine. It’s all part of the experience, a thing that forces you to be present and go “yes I’m doing this.” The slight reduction in premox risk for the waxed white Burgundies I collect is the cherry on top
Agree
I prefer standard-sized burgundy bottles; they fit better in bins.
I’m certainly with the YMMV camp on collateral damage on opening. It CAN go well (see below) but it can be a chore. I use the hand warm technique, draw the cork 50% and clean up. As chance would have it the Macon I pulled for our fish cakes a couple of days ago had a wax capsule, and this wasn’t a high end wine.
This bottle opened cleanly.
Wax doesn’t really affect my buying choices.
So far so good…
No shards…
Nice clean pour
I built a small tool that is like a little drill head that spins in a circle (diameter adjustable) inside a flowbee like vacuum rig. I pop it over the wax bottle head, depress the trigger, and it grinds off the wax in a few seconds. The vacuum sucks up all the bits. No muss, no fuss, naked glass when done. I have another neat little device that is like a Durand head on an electric screwdriver to open bottles. Now that I wrapped some machine learning around the pressure sensor and opened a few hundred test bottles, it opens any bottle more or less instantly and always perfectly, no matter the cork. I have another nifty little gadget that drinks the wine for me and auto generates CT reviews.
The good thing about wax capsules is that they inspire us to greater creativity and inventiveness.
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