Wet Wine

[MickS]

G'day All
This is my first posting on this site, and I know I should probably introduce myself, and have a bit of a chat about wines, but I have a bit of a problem I need some urgent advice on and am hoping the fine folk on this site can point me the right direction.
To cut a long story short, some of my wine as been under water (yep I'm in Queensland) for about 2 days. Now my wine that has screw tops, I'm not to concerned about but some of my collectable wine which is corked I am concerned with. I'm expecting the lables will be damaged, but what about the wine itself, I'm not sure. Any advice? I have dried the bottles as best can but I'm not sure what to expect.
Te cellar floor is now dryish, walls still wet. Humidity is currently 93%, temp is 23 deg as it's all open trying to dry things out.Not a good state of affairs. Currently have a dehumidifier running to try and dry things out a bit, mould is starting to set in.
Insurance assessor will be here soon I hope to look at the floor, walls etc,( I imagine there a bit busy) but I'm not sure about the wine.
So what do you think, any advice on what I should be doing would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Happy New Year

Cheers

Mick

[rens]

I'm just having a guess but I think the wine will be fine. The corks would have had good humidity to maintain the seal. Depending on weather you want to sell them later on at auction the label damage may be a problem - especially if the label has been completely removed (I've heard of that happening). Although having said that, I'm not sure I would buy wine at auction that I knew had been flooded. It will be interesting to see what others thoughts are.
Rens

[Luke W]

Hi Mick

I remember in the 74 floods in Brissie the Morrison threw out all its wine that had gone under and said that they were worried about bacteria but I think its unlikely that corks would allow any sort of ingress given the fact that they keep the wine inside. If you don't get insurance for them I'd try a few over the next few months and see what happens (just make sure that your cholera shots are up to date!).

cheers

Luke

[morph_associates]

Should be fine provided the water wasn't too toxic. Cork isn't that absorbent, not that rapidly at least.

A few years ago, our Champagne guru in Brisbane - Bernadette O'Shea - had tasted Champagne that had sat at the bottom of some ocean for decades (a sunken ship) and the wine was fine... outstanding even.

See how you go. If in doubt, at least get a highly absorbent towel of some kind and press the capsule seals around every cork-bearing bottle to squish out the water and soak it up. Won't get it all, but at least you'll stop whatever little pool is sitting behind each bottle capsule, right next to the cork. That's the only bit I'd be concerned about really.

Best of luck.

[daz]

Good corks are meant to seal a wine as effectively as stelvins/screwcaps.

[Wizz]

Mick you should be OK - its not 100% risk free as not every seal is perfect, but I'd be comfortable drinking the wine if it happened to my cellar.

Hi Mick

I remember in the 74 floods in Brissie the Morrison threw out all its wine that had gone under and said that they were worried about bacteria but I think its unlikely that corks would allow any sort of ingress given the fact that they keep the wine inside. If you don't get insurance for them I'd try a few over the next few months and see what happens (just make sure that your cholera shots are up to date!).

cheers

Luke

A brief clarification if I may - the staff at the Morrison didn't want to destroy all that wine - the Qld health department forced them to, and supervised the destruction. I got this direct from a person who was on staff at the time.

Cheers

Andrew

[Mahmoud Ali]

I wouldn't worry too much, it takes decades for wine to seep through a good cork. By comparison two days isn't much. Of course many of the labels will be damaged but that shouldn't be a problem if you weren't planning to sell them.

The suggestion to mop up any water that may have got under the capsules is an excellent suggestion. I have a friend who used to remove the capsules from the bottle before he cellared them as he wanted to avoid getting any fungus growth. Personally I think the water is more important than any fungus. Almost every old bottle of Bordeaux that I pull from my cellar has a ton of guck under the lead capsule. I usually need a couple of paper towels to clean it before using the corkscrew.

Many old wineries in Europe age their wines in dark, dank, fungus infested underground cellars without apparent worries, especially their library collections.

Hope it all works out....................Mahmoud.

[MickS]

Thanks for the suggestions, the one about the capsule seals is a beauty.
Current temp in the cellar is 24 deg, humidity 89%, hopefully it will be back to normal soon.
I've had heaps of mates offer to come over and sample some of the wine that went under to make sure it's ok.What are friends for?

Cheers

Mick

[morph_associates]

Thanks for the suggestions, the one about the capsule seals is a beauty.
Current temp in the cellar is 24 deg, humidity 89%, hopefully it will be back to normal soon.
I've had heaps of mates offer to come over and sample some of the wine that went under to make sure it's ok.What are friends for?

Cheers

Mick

Happy to help.
But more importantly, where do we sign up to become one of these 'friends'? haha.