I got a new wine-rack on Saturday, nothing fancy, as I bought it to go
into a dark space under the stairs in the cellar . I had previously
been storing my better bottles inside of wooden wine shipping boxes,
which I'm sure is fine for storage, but not so great for retreival,
especially since space is cramped down there and some boxes were
stacked 2-high.

In any case, I started transferring the wines from the wooden boxes
into the new rack, and was putting my dessert wines and 375s on top,
for no particular reason except perhaps to keep things in some sort of
order and to make the rack less top-heavy. One bottle that went almost
on top was a 375 or 1998 Chteau Suduiraut. Unfinished pine rack,
dark space, clear bottle, yellow capsule, yellow liquid. In other
words, after putting it on the rack, it was almost invisible in the
light I was in. I also think I pushed it a bit too far back, so the
capsule wasn't sticking out the front of the rack in a visible manner.

A few moments later, having forgotten where I was on the rack, I was
putting a bottle of 2001 Vieux Telegraphe into the rack, and pushed it
into what I thought was an empty slot. At the same moment I put the
DVT into place, I heard a loud clanking sound coming from behind the
rack, on the bare concrete floor. Turns out I pushed the Suduiraut
right out the back of the rack, and it free-fell about 3 feet onto the
bare concrete floor...and didn't break! I could not believe it. The
bottle looked quite shaken up, and some bubbles had formed inside from
the shock, but somehow, it was perfectly intact!

This was pure luck I'm sure, but it also seems to me that Chteau
Suduiraut uses some pretty strong bottles.

On another note, is that massive shock and subsequent formation of
foamy bubbles inside likely to hurt the wine at all?

- Chris the lucky, who almost ended up licking the floor and crying at
the same time...

Wow, you are lucky. I don't think the shock will hurt anything (I
personally probably would not serve it tomorrow, however, just as I
wait on delivered bottles for a couple weeks).

Two thoughts:
1) pretty easy to happen again if space behind racks. Any way to fill
in?
2) I keep thick rubber pads on my cellar floor as partial insurance.

cheers, Dale

Chris Sprague wrote:
> I got a new wine-rack on Saturday, nothing fancy, as I bought it to go
> into a dark space under the stairs in the cellar . I had previously
> been storing my better bottles inside of wooden wine shipping boxes,
> which I'm sure is fine for storage, but not so great for retreival,
> especially since space is cramped down there and some boxes were
> stacked 2-high.
>
> In any case, I started transferring the wines from the wooden boxes
> into the new rack, and was putting my dessert wines and 375s on top,
> for no particular reason except perhaps to keep things in some sort of
> order and to make the rack less top-heavy. One bottle that went almost
> on top was a 375 or 1998 Chteau Suduiraut. Unfinished pine rack,
> dark space, clear bottle, yellow capsule, yellow liquid. In other
> words, after putting it on the rack, it was almost invisible in the
> light I was in. I also think I pushed it a bit too far back, so the
> capsule wasn't sticking out the front of the rack in a visible manner.
>
> A few moments later, having forgotten where I was on the rack, I was
> putting a bottle of 2001 Vieux Telegraphe into the rack, and pushed it
> into what I thought was an empty slot. At the same moment I put the
> DVT into place, I heard a loud clanking sound coming from behind the
> rack, on the bare concrete floor. Turns out I pushed the Suduiraut
> right out the back of the rack, and it free-fell about 3 feet onto the
> bare concrete floor...and didn't break! I could not believe it. The
> bottle looked quite shaken up, and some bubbles had formed inside from
> the shock, but somehow, it was perfectly intact!
>
> This was pure luck I'm sure, but it also seems to me that Chteau
> Suduiraut uses some pretty strong bottles.
>
> On another note, is that massive shock and subsequent formation of
> foamy bubbles inside likely to hurt the wine at all?
>
> - Chris the lucky, who almost ended up licking the floor and crying at
> the same time...

"Chris Sprague" > skrev i melding
ps.com...
..... Turns out I pushed the Suduiraut
right out the back of the rack, and it free-fell about 3 feet onto the
bare concrete floor...and didn't break! I could not believe it.

Hi
Very full bottles are hard to break. You can't compress liquid very much...
Try this: Fill any bottle to the brim and seal it. Now you can use it for a
hammer... within reason.
Anders