Liquid Measurement Conversions
1 U.S. gallon = 3.785 liters
1 U.S. gallon = 5 standard bottles
1 U.S. quart = 0.946 liters
1 U.S. fluid oz. = 29.573 ml.
1 Imperial gallon = 4.546 liters
1 Imperial gallon = 6 standard bottles
1 Imperial quart = 1.136
1 Imperial fluid oz. = 28.413
Corks, Screw Caps & Capsules
“Consuming wine in moderation daily will help people to die young as late as possible.”
- Dr. Philip Norrie
Other than the bottle, the cork is the only thing protecting a wine from going bad during storage. Corks may be natural or synthetic. Or they can be a combination of natural and synthetic called hybrids. Natural cork comes from a special oak tree called Quercus Suber. Cork has been used as bottle stoppers for more than 400 years. Cork is possibly the best material to use as a bottle stopper because it contains a natural waxy substance, called suberin. This substance makes cork impermeable to liquids and gas, and prevents the cork from rotting.
Cork oak forests cover approximately 2.5 million hectares (over 6 million acres) primarily in seven countries: Portugal, Algeria, Spain, Morocco, France, Italy and Tunisia. Portugal produces more than 50% of the world's cork. Cork oak trees have a life span of 200-250 years.
Each cork tree must be 20 to 25 years old before it can provide its first harvest of cork bark called "virgin". This type of cork has a hard and irregular structure. After removing the virgin cork a new layer of cork bark starts generating. The first of these layers, extracted after nine years is given the name "secondary cork" and the ones produced from subsequent extractions are "amadia." The first layer of reproduction cork is more even than virgin cork, but cannot match the perfect quality of amadia. A typical tree produces several hundred kilograms (hundreds of pounds) of cork at each annual harvest and will survive for many generations.
The cork harvesting is made in a sustainable manner and does not harm the tree in any way. Cork grows naturally to form 14-sided cells in the bark. Strips of cork bark are carefully removed and dried for six months in outside drying yards. Then they are boiled and restacked inside covered sheds or warehouses. Once dried, they are cut into strips as wide as a cork is long. These strips are then hand- fed into cork dies that cut the cork into the familiar shapes that we all recognize.
The real problem with cork is taint. Cork can sometimes develop a mold, and lead to “corking” of the wine. Cork taint is a musty or moldy off-odor in wine mainly caused by 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (2,4,6-TCA) generated by certain growing molds. Stacking cork bark on the ground is partially responsible for the cork becoming contaminated with TCA. Cork taint (trichloroanisole or TCA) has been blamed as a wine spoiler for decades. Corked wine is completely undrinkable. Typical losses in the past have been on the order of 3-4% of a winery’s production. To combat corking, a number of wineries are turning to synthetic corks that have the same wonderful sealing properties of real cork, but do not harbor molds. The loss during shipping and storage from synthetic corks has been about 1%.
Some wineries have now turned to screw-on caps for their premium wines. They have chosen to make the investment in their premium bottling lines because the payback is faster for their more expensive wines. Screw caps have further reduced losses to less than 0.1% of production. Typical construction for a screw cap closure is the metal cap, a layer of plastic and a layer of aluminum foil. Sometimes there is a thin layer of additional plastic where the cap meets the mouth of the wine bottle.
Capsules are the plastic/aluminum foil/tin foil coverings on the top of many wine bottles. The origin of these devices is cloudy but it is generally accepted they came into being for a purpose of covering the cork and top of the bottle to inhibit mold from growing on the weeping corks. In ancient times lead capsules were first used for this purpose. In recent time, the capsule has been used as a decorative device on wine bottles. Aluminum foil, soft tin foil and heat shrinkable plastics have all but replaced the older lead foils. Some wineries use the capsule to hide the unsightly wine stains on the underside of the cork that is exposed to the wine – rather like the catsup bottles have the small wrap-around label to hide the darkened catsup/air interface. Capsules make the wine bottle more presentable or pretty.
Corkscrews & Foil Cutters
Here's to the corkscrew - a useful key to unlock the storehouse of wit, the treasury of laughter, the front door of fellowship, and the gate of pleasant folly.
- W.E.P. French (From the wine list of Commander's Palace in New Orleans, Louisiana)
There are three types of corkscrews on the market that are worth having – the screw pull (also called the rabbit), the Ah So corkscrew, and the waiter’s corkscrew.
The Ah So corkscrew is useful when you have a cork that is very old or crumbling. It is a 2-pronged device that you slip down along the side of the cork and the inside of the bottle. Then use a slow turning and pulling motion to remove the stubborn cork.
The waiter’s corkscrew is the most popular one that you see in restaurants. It has a foil cutter to remove the capsule as well as the long spiral to screw into the cork. It has a leveraged handle that is applied against the lip of the bottle and gently pulled to remove the cork.
Buy only these three, learn to use them, and leave the others in the storage tray in the garage. A good corkscrew will have a minimum of five full twists in the screw. A very interesting piece of wine trivia is that, as of 2004, 80% of American households did not own a corkscrew.
Their reluctance (or refusal) to purchase a corkscrew may be timely since wineries worldwide are making the change over to screw-cap closures. And we are seeing more “chateau cardboard” wines – wines packaged in a box with spigots. Eventually there