Don't Recork Your Wines; Uncork Them

Reflections on the latest scandal in French wine

James Suckling
Posted: April 12, 2002

Recently, a French judge has created turmoil in Bordeaux by ordering an investigation into an age-old practice: adding young wine to an old vintage when recorking or reconditioning a bottle.

This practice was bound to come under public scrutiny sooner or later. I have criticized reconditioning for years because I am convinced that it increases the traffic in fake bottles of rare wines.

In a May 31, 1998 cover story on counterfeit wines, I wrote: "Many of the producers and merchants are actually aiding counterfeiters through such policies as relabeling and recorking. As a service to customers, some wineries, especially those in Bordeaux, will recondition old bottles by providing either a new cork or a new label and capsule. In recorking, bottles are often 'topped up' with wine if the levels are slightly below normal. Whether the same vintage is used is up to the château."

What I wrote is apparently the crux of the court case now in France. According to press reports, a Belgian wine merchant, Khaled Rouabah, has been under investigation for selling fake bottles of 1900 Lafite and Margaux. After Rouabah said that it was common for châteaus to recondition old wines with younger ones, a senior investigating judge in Paris, Renaud Van Ruymbeke, ordered police to investigate various estates -- including such great names as Margaux and Pétrus -- from which they seized samples of wine.

For years, it was a common practice at some of the top châteaus to recork wines once they were 20 years old or more, because some believed that natural corks lose their elasticity after two or three decades. Château Lafite-Rothschild, for example, would send its staff on trips abroad to the United States and other countries to recork bottles for merchants and consumers. Reconditioning bottles has been considered a service to customers, and most châteaus do not charge for recorking, relabeling or recapsuling.

The process of recorking usually involves the following: A customer brings an old wine to a château and asks to have the corks replaced. The quality of the wine is evaluated, both visually and by tasting each bottle. If a bottle is of poor quality -- for example, if it has a very low fill-level or the wine has a flawed taste -- it is corked with a new blank cork, or put aside. Bottles that are still good are given new corks printed with the date of the reconditioning as well as the original vintage. Usually, a tiny bit of the same wine, preferably from one of the customer's bottles, is used to bring the fill level back up to the right height.

Problems usually arise when a customer brings extremely rare, old bottles, like a 1928, 1929 or even something from the 1800s. No other bottles exist for topping-up, and a château would never use one of its own few remaining bottles from the same vintage. So it is forced to choose a current vintage at the same quality level. Right now, something like a 1990 or 1989 might be used to fill top, rare years such as 1961, 1959 or 1945. I have a friend with a bottle of Château Margaux from the 1780s, which was topped up with a few drops of 1959 when it was recorked at the château.

Personally, I want my wine to be 100 percent from the vintage. Moreover, if an old wine has the original cork, label and capsule, I can feel more assured that the bottle is the real thing. (The few bottles of very old Vintage Ports I have in my cellars have their capsules replaced with wax, which I have found is highly effective in maintaining a tight closure on a bottle.)

It's a shame that some people will buy old bottles of Bordeaux and other wines only if they look perfect. One of the main ways to know that a wine has been well kept in a dark, cool, damp cellar is the slight deterioration of the packaging. Yet many wine collectors, merchants and auction houses take great pride in the fact that some of their old bottles have sparkling new labels, corks and capsules.

Christian Moueix, part owner of Pétrus and owner of other prestigious estates in Pomerol and St.-Emilion, said he has prohibited reconditioning bottles at his estates since 1998 because he thought the service could be susceptible to fraud. "It's just too hard to control," he said.

Another key point: Over the last 20 years of tasting fine, rare wines, I have found that bottles that have been recorked almost always taste worse than those that have their original corks, assuming the bottles have equally high fill-levels. I find reconditioned bottles to have a slightly dull, almost mushroomy character. Nonetheless, due to their pretty appearance, these reconditioned bottles often fetch higher prices in auctions than dusty old bottles.

In any case, the best way to avoid the whole issue is through good storage practices. Wines kept in cool, humid cellars rarely need recorking. And if you plan on drinking your wines, not selling them, you don't need to worry about fresh labels and new corks. I believe a large number of people who have their bottles reconditioned are primarily interested in their resale value. That's what triggered this whole mess in the first place.

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