Why I (really, really) don't like wax capsules

[Tom_G_l_a_s_g_o_w]

Your wines don’t stick around long enough for the wax to harden, at least not in my house!

I don’t remember if the wax hardened or not but here was my attempt at pulling the cork straight through the wax on a Sabelli-Frisch Flame Tokay.

IMG_20200512_181539.jpg

Yup, exactly. Have had this happen on the same bottle… and I had tried to warm the wax under hot water for 20 seconds as well.

I’m pretty sure this is the bottle I cracked the rim and cut my hand. Usually the wax with give is easy to open but this wax is stubborn.

[Bill_Johnson]

Things I dislike in wine containers, in decreasing order of dislike.

1. Natural corks (TCA).
2. Oversized bottles (storage).
3. Capsules (messy).
4. Labels that will not soak off (wife likes to use them).

[Cris_Whetstone]

I’m not sure I have read your exploration of the causes behind the premox tragedy, but I certainly believe that changes in the vineyards and winemaking led to more vulnerable wines, variability in corks led to the “random” nature of the expression of premox among different bottles in the same case, and DIAM or screw tops are simply masking the underlying vulnerabilities…at least for a good long while, it seems.

Can you elaborate on what changes occurred almost universally in the 1995-96 vintages and EVER SINCE to make the wines more vulnerable? For example, did everyone but Coche and Raveneau buy a pneumatic press all at once? Did everyone else cut down their sulfur usage all at once? Did the corks all go to hell at at once? Why wouldn’t Leflaive realize that they too were relatively spared until they changed things in the early 2000’s? And why to this day, 25 years later, are producers still making wines that will premox and simply mask them with DIAM (or refuse to), rather than return to wine growing and winemaking as they and their fathers/grandfathers did in the pre-premox era? (And I would love to know where you wrote about premox previously.)

You pose some very pertinent questions. But, if the wine wasn’t already oxidized when it went into the bottle (which may have sometimes been the case in the past), I think that the closure is a necessary and sufficient factor for premox in white Burgundy, though there are often contributing factors. But even if you do everything right, if you get a bad closure your wine can still oxidize. The way cork oaks were cultivated changed a lot around the same time: the trees grow faster and are harvested more often. Even if they were few and far between, producers who truly didn’t change a thing still saw an increase in problems. In post #71, I cited the example of a producer who tested the oxygen transmission rate of a batch of high quality corks and found a variability to the tune of a factor of 50. Now, for a given level of free SO2, with that batch of corks you will have wines that are oxidized, wines that are perfect, and wines that are reduced in the same lot. It is hard to believe if you are not involved in production, perhaps, and I was for a long time convinced that it was just a question of folks having “messed up the winemaking”; but if you want to understand why people like Olivier Lamy have been convinced to go to DIAM, this is why: they have done everything they can to make the wines the right way, from the vineyards to pressing to élevage to bottling without any appreciable dissolved oxygen; and they have still suffered from premox or just unacceptable levels of bottle variation when you know the wine in question intimately.

Of course, and as I also discussed in post #71, the winemaking changes that were widely adopted in the mid-1990s that made wines more fragile also resulted in stylistic changes: less dry extract, less physical structure in the wine; wines that were more “elegant” by one definition, but it was harder to find “Meursault you could chew”, as a friend of mine likes to put it. I think the test of time has also shown that these new school wines also do fewer interesting things with time even when they don’t oxidize. My recent vertical with Vincent Dureuil was illuminating in this regard, as in 1998, when he first bought a pneumatic press, he told me that the salesman reassured him that he’d programmed it with the same press program as a famous Côte de Beaune domaine. The marc at the end of the press cycle was still moist, and his father told him it wasn’t done and to press it again. He refused, thinking he knew better… and today, the 1998 is the most evolved, least textural, and least interesting wine in a vertical of his Meix Cadot Vieilles Vignes. Happily, he quickly understood that if you use a pneumatic press correctly, you can get very good results (FYI, Raveneau has used a peneumatic press for years, and Coche uses one as well, though they still have the old Vaslin screw press; Domaine d’Auvenay and Leroy use a pneumatic press; PYCM uses a pneumatic press). But a lot of people were regrettably slow learners in this respect—and in fairness, many didn’t have the habit of drinking their own wines with age, and nor did consumers stop buying them, so where was the incentive to learn?

However, I’m convinced that without the problem with closures, these changes would have resulted in an (arguably regrettable) stylistic change but not in premox.

If we are really going to go into the many contributing factors to premox beyond the closure, my list would include:

• clonal selections with a higher cluster weight, meaning fatter berries with more juice vs skins
• climate change resulting in grapes with higher levels of polyphenoloxidases
• viticultural practices unadapted to warmer vintages: hedging low, cultivating the soil late in the season, resulting in higher pH musts
• pressing too gently, without extracting from the skins
• too little lees
• oxidative élevage practices, including: too much small volume new oak, incorrectly executed battonage, heating cellars to accelerate malolactic fermentation, not enough topping
• insufficient SO2
• dissolved oxygen at bottling due to unsparged bottling lines, tanks, and pumps

However, you can get all of this right, and a lot else too, and still be let down by the closure!

I truly tank you William for this lengthy treatise. I do. But I hope you can also understand how eminently frustrating it is for you to continually bring up enclosures after all the other explanations. Robert clearly is feeling some frustration with that as well.

Even your last sentence feels like yet another excusing of Burgundy producers by using their own unwillingness to mea culpa. Of course the problem that seems to have plagued Burgundy came from OUTSIDE Burgundy. How else? Where was the widespread premox outside of Burgundy due to suddenly weak enclosures? I know there are sporadic reports but clearly this has been an issue that has affected Burgundy far and away the worst. Regions to the north and south do not seem to have this level of issues. Again, were especially experimental corks shipped only to Burgundy?

Corks can be variable. Anyone who has drank a fair number of aged wines knows this. That’s why laying some large part if not all the blame for such an issue like premox begs credibility. Many wines are showing premox when far to young to show any real cork variability. That is why things like Diam and wax come off as pure excuse making.

The issues in the winemaking above make a lot of sense. I’d love for more openness from the producers on those accounts. I’d love to see more information on this that doesn’t have to include excusing all of those changes by making sure a scapegoat is pointed to while discussing them.

[John_Glas]

Things I dislike in wine containers, in decreasing order of dislike.

1. Natural corks (TCA).
2. Oversized bottles (storage).
3. Capsules (messy).
4. Labels that will not soak off (wife likes to use them).

Screw Caps are the only solution.

[John_Glas]

Things I dislike in wine containers, in decreasing order of dislike.

1. Natural corks (TCA).
2. Oversized bottles (storage).
3. Capsules (messy).
4. Labels that will not soak off (wife likes to use them).

Screw Caps are the only solution.

[William_Kelley]

I truly tank you William for this lengthy treatise. I do. But I hope you can also understand how eminently frustrating it is for you to continually bring up enclosures after all the other explanations. Robert clearly is feeling some frustration with that as well.

Even your last sentence feels like yet another excusing of Burgundy producers by using their own unwillingness to mea culpa. Of course the problem that seems to have plagued Burgundy came from OUTSIDE Burgundy. How else? Where was the widespread premox outside of Burgundy due to suddenly weak enclosures? I know there are sporadic reports but clearly this has been an issue that has affected Burgundy far and away the worst. Regions to the north and south do not seem to have this level of issues. Again, were especially experimental corks shipped only to Burgundy?

Corks can be variable. Anyone who has drank a fair number of aged wines knows this. That’s why laying some large part if not all the blame for such an issue like premox begs credibility. Many wines are showing premox when far to young to show any real cork variability. That is why things like Diam and wax come off as pure excuse making.

The issues in the winemaking above make a lot of sense. I’d love for more openness from the producers on those accounts. I’d love to see more information on this that doesn’t have to include excusing all of those changes by making sure a scapegoat is pointed to while discussing them.

If you don’t see the significance of a batch of closures that varies in oxygen transmission rate by a factor of fifty, then I don’t think there’s much more to be said. But if DIAM is “pure excuse making”, where are all the premoxed white Burgundies bottled under DIAM? I never encountered one, nor met anyone who had. And nor does your “pure excuse making” account for why producers who didn’t change anything in their winemaking still have problems from time to time, typically for a particular cuvée and vintage (this has happened to Raveneau, and even Coche and d’Auvenay) i.e. batch of corks. As for premox being specific to Burgundy, that’s clearly not the case: I’ve had premoxed Haut Brion Blanc, Vatan Sancerre, Huet, Clos Saint-Hune, Rhône whites… and plenty of German GGs, too, so this isn’t even a uniquely French phenomenon. If more places outside of the Côte de Beaune (even most Chablis and Mâcon is drunk young) aspired to make age-worthy dry whites, I don’t doubt we would see even more than we do.

Now, I have no interest in defending producers who have messed up the winemaking at one or several stages of the process. And if your wine is oxidized a year after release, you likely made a mistake. There are still producers in this camp, and they should be ashamed of themselves. But I do want to defend producers who have done everything right, and who, far from trying to project the blame, have devoted more energy to solving this problem than you can imagine; and who then find, after seven or eight years, that some of their bottles are evolving much faster than others. Knowing their wines more intimately than most consumers, they are even more sensitive to bottles that are slightly advanced (I suspect a lot of mildly advanced bottles get drunk up quite happily), and it’s immensely frustrating.

[alan_weinberg]

way back in the day when many of us first explored premox and expounded on eBob and later here, Rovani said it wasn’t the cork closure. Many of us vociferously disagreed. It’s clear that cork variability in permeability of oxygen coupled with an environment of less protection against oxygen (lees stirring, gentler pressing, lower sulfur levels) leads to premox. Diam or screwcap is a solution.

[Adam_Frisch]

I don’t remember if the wax hardened or not but here was my attempt at pulling the cork straight through the wax on a Sabelli-Frisch Flame Tokay.

IMG_20200512_181539.jpg

Sorry, missed this. That’s unfortunate, normally it works pretty well to pull right through. But I do have to confess that sometimes when waxing, you can create a small bubble or air pocket between the wax and the cork if the cork is set a bit low. And to remedy that I re-wax again, which then sometimes creates two layers and a thicker wax. Might have been one of those bottles.

[Vince_T]

I don’t remember if the wax hardened or not but here was my attempt at pulling the cork straight through the wax on a Sabelli-Frisch Flame Tokay.

IMG_20200512_181539.jpg

Sorry, missed this. That’s unfortunate, normally it works pretty well to pull right through. But I do have to confess that sometimes when waxing, you can create a small bubble or air pocket between the wax and the cork if the cork is set a bit low. And to remedy that I re-wax again, which then sometimes creates two layers and a thicker wax. Might have been one of those bottles.

Same exact thing Happened to me on the flame tokay as well.

[David_Glasser]

I have plans for a straightforward solution to the wax problem. A minor modification to this corkscrew will add a wax removal step. I’ll get to it as soon as I finish up my self-driving car project with Elon Musk.

Rube Goldberg corkscrew

[Tom_G_l_a_s_g_o_w]

Successfully removed a Sabelli-Frisch wax capsule without loss of life, limb or requiring stitches. Gotta work from the bottom of the wax capsule up and cut it off with the corkscrews’ foil cutter. Work the blade under the wax and keep at it. Don’t take one of these to a restaurant, wait staff will be spitting in your food for decades.

[P_a_u_l_Christensen]

Perhaps I missed something in this thread, but I simply use a sharp knife to slice off the wax even with the top of the glass. Then I use a corkscrew. Works well and looks good the few times I have done it.

Yes indeed. In my case I’ve found that a standard very cheap foil cutter (the type with 4 round blades that you just put on top, grip and twist) does the job perfectly well with wax as well.

[Michael_Martin]

Pop the corkscrew through the middle and pull up. The top of the wax will crack in more or less a circular pattern, then you can pull out the cork. I can’t remember the last time I “cut” away capsule.

[Tom_G_l_a_s_g_o_w]

Pop the corkscrew through the middle and pull up. The top of the wax will crack in more or less a circular pattern, then you can pull out the cork. I can’t remember the last time I “cut” away capsule.

That works well for hard wax. It’s a hard fail for certain soft waxes like the S-F wax. See post 121.

[Michael_Martin]

Pop the corkscrew through the middle and pull up. The top of the wax will crack in more or less a circular pattern, then you can pull out the cork. I can’t remember the last time I “cut” away capsule.

That works well for hard wax. It’s a hard fail for certain soft waxes like the S-F wax. See post 121.

Maybe your soft capsule needs a little blue pill.

[JDavisRoby]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CbXoPItLHM9/?utm_medium=copy_link

[SBayard]

I’ve seen some shift away from capsules of any kind in the Willamette Valley. Some folks are adding a drop of wax to the top. Looks to be just decorative (Illahe and Belle Pente come to mind). I do like the way the two I mentioned do it: just a drop on the top (it fills in the top of the cork and doesn’t cover any glass). You can punch the corkscrew through it, but I usually find that unnecessary. It’s easy to flick off with the blade of your wine key.

[bddehn]

I manage a small winery in Amador County (Norther California) where one of our specialties is Port wines. We dip each of our tall bottle .375’s with wax, primarily as a marketing look (i.e., each is a different color of wax). Historically, we would explain to our Port Club members that the easiest way to open these bottles was run the wax tops over medium hot temperature water for 30 seconds and then use a small knife to cut the top portion of the wax off prior to using the corkscrew. What we discovered over time (in our tasting room) was we could use a device called a “Cork-Pop” to open these bottles most efficiently. This device was meant (I believe originally) as a alternative to replace the Ah-So for extracting corks from older bottles. This device isn’t new, as I have been using one at my house for a couple decades. A long needle is pushed through the cork and an attached gas cartridge fills the ullage to push the cork out. What we found was that the needle easily goes through both the wax/cork and when pressurized surprisingly both the cork and the exact circular top of the wax pops right off. My staff have been using this device for the last 6-8 months to open all our wax top bottles. The caveat would be that these wax tops are not well aged and have yet to develop into a real hard composition. Just my two cents.

[John_Kight]

I’ve seen some shift away from capsules of any kind in the Willamette Valley. Some folks are adding a drop of wax to the top. Looks to be just decorative (Illahe and Belle Pente come to mind). I do like the way the two I mentioned do it: just a drop on the top (it fills in the top of the cork and doesn’t cover any glass). You can punch the corkscrew through it, but I usually find that unnecessary. It’s easy to flick off with the blade of your wine key.

Zind-Humbrecht used to do this. (I don’t know if they still do, as I haven’t bought any in 3-4 years). They were small circular yellow wax “discs” that fit perfectly over the cork surface, but didn’t overlap the glass at all. On a trip to Alsace, another producer told me origin/reason for this practice". He said that Zind-Humbrecht was experiencing some type of bug (I believe he said “moth”) that was able to deposit its eggs on the surface of the cork (presumably through the foil capsule, though how that’s even conceivable mystifies me). The eggs would hatch and the larvae would then burrow into and eat the cork, destroying the seal. The yellow wax discs were the apparently successful solution to this problem.

As I say, this is second-hand info of a story that seems a bit implausible, but I’m posting here in case anyone else is familiar with the Zind-Humbrecht story. (It’s also possible that I’ve gotten some details wrong beyond the basic story of “bug infestation”, as this was about 10 years back).

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Update: I now believe the story was that the eggs were deposited on the corks during the “bottle resting” phase, after corking the bottles but prior to applying the foil capsules over the cork. Not sure whether that’s my “memory” of this story evolving with further thought, or it’s just a logical explanation that I’ve now conflated with the memory of the story. But either way, this makes more sense than a moth penetrating a foil capsule.

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Second Update: From How to protect wine from damage by the cork moth? | wein.plus Wine Basics

“The cork moth likes to lay its eggs in damp places in the wine cellar, especially directly on the cork of the wine bottle. The cork then serves as food for the caterpillars, . . . the corks become leaky over time, which leads to a rapid loss of quality of the wine because it oxidises. Uninfested bottles can be protected quite reliably against cork moth infestation by covering them with sealing wax.”

[M_Meer]

I am now firmly in the F-wax camp. Second bottle opened from a case and I’m starting to believe that 23 year-old wax beats 23 year-old cork.

The first time, the corkscrew pulled clean out, leaving a hole in the middle of the cork, which was still in place. I finished it up with an ah so and cleaned up all the cork bits (the wax had no effect in maintaining the cork’s integrity).

The second time, I scored the wax around the neck then pulled up with a corkscrew enough to break the seal. I could already see the cork was going to break apart. I peeled off the wax and used an ah so. Much cleaner. Total time: 5-10 minutes, lol.

So, yeah. F-wax!