When I was young and an apprentice it was fairly common practice to re-cork the wines in major cellars. The team of “workers” would visit a private cellar complete with corking mahine an new corks. After inspection the selected bottles would have their corks pulled and a bottle selected to “top up” all the other bottles and then the new cork would be applied. The Foreman then would write out a certificate stating date, place and amount of bottles re-corked. Also a bit of sealing wax was applied to the side of the bottle and before it hardened the date was stamped into the wax.
Penfold’s the Australian producer plans to bring their re-corking clinic to Britain again for the firt time since 2008. The clinic takes place every two years in Australia where any of their wines 15 years or older are topped and re-corked.
