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The Book wrote:► A Miscellany of Wine (1932), C. W. Berry, pages 75-76:No, never recork wine if it can be avoided; however much care is exercised, the old wine must, perforce, be exposed to the air, much of the concentrated “ethers” (the beauty sleep, as it were, of the wine) escape, with the result that the wine never will be as good as it was before the operation.
… Some years ago a client living in the south of Ireland wrote to my firm, instructing them to send a man with the necessary material to recork about fifty dozen Port (1896 Dow). We replied that before doing so we would like to see a bottle so as to satisfy ourselves that it was really necessary, adding that the wine would lose its pedigree and certainly its commercial value. He refused to send a bottle, I imagine for one of two reasons:—
1. That it was like our impertinence not to accept his word that the wine required recorking.
2. That he would be d—d if he would send us a bottle of his ’ninety-six to drink at his expense.
We refused to send a man, but added that the writer would be in the south of Ireland in a few weeks’ time and would call. So it was left, and I duly presented myself at the Castle. Three of us (the Squire, the butler and I) made our way to the cellar; the butler was ordered to draw a cork; he tried—the cork broke in pieces. “As I explained,” expostulated the Squire, “and you would not believe me.” “May I try,” I asked. “To be sure,” says he. Taking my own corkscrew from my pocket, I inserted it in the cork of the bottle which he had handed to me, and without any difficulty extracted the cork—whole—a beautiful cork.
The entire fault lay with the corkscrew; his butler was using a gimlet-like instrument in order to extract an old cork, instead of using a wide-thread screw. I believe as often as not that this is where the fault is to be found.