I guess it comes with age but sadly this seems to have caught me on the hop.
I bottled about 60 bottles of elderberry port about three months ago and bottled about 50 bottles of elderberry wine. It had all sat on a rack behaving quite nicely until a couple of weeks ago when we got that hot spell of weather (you know the one. It lasted about a week and was sandwiched in the middle of four weeks of rain).
At the end of this hot spell I noticed beads of wine on the shrinks of some of the wine bottles and today, a couple of weeks later, I noticed four of the bottles of port had also seeped under their shrinks. I've opened the worst one and that seems to be down to a faulty cork. The wine was corked using the silicon coated 'Favourite' corks. They were given a quick slosh in a campden solution (5 Tablets added to a pint of water) and then driven in using an Italian floor corker.
The Port was sealed in the same way but with natural untreated corks (it's possible that the seepage from the port is down to faulty corks). The bottles were a collection of supermarket empties and a few Youngs bottles.
It has been suggested (in the case of the wine) that the heat spell started to soften the silicon and that this was responsible for the seepage. I just wondered if it was usual to have a few bottles go like this or am I doing something wrong?
The bottles are stored in the garage on wine racks and the temperature is usually around 15-18 degrees C but obviously rose a bit during the hot spell.
The wine has no trace of gas in so internal pressure is not the issue. As this is the first time I've bottled wine I have no experience to fall back on.
Sorry if this is a rather stupid question but as I said I have no experience in this matter.
Thanks.
I bottled about 60 bottles of elderberry port about three months ago and bottled about 50 bottles of elderberry wine. It had all sat on a rack behaving quite nicely until a couple of weeks ago when we got that hot spell of weather (you know the one. It lasted about a week and was sandwiched in the middle of four weeks of rain).
At the end of this hot spell I noticed beads of wine on the shrinks of some of the wine bottles and today, a couple of weeks later, I noticed four of the bottles of port had also seeped under their shrinks. I've opened the worst one and that seems to be down to a faulty cork. The wine was corked using the silicon coated 'Favourite' corks. They were given a quick slosh in a campden solution (5 Tablets added to a pint of water) and then driven in using an Italian floor corker.
The Port was sealed in the same way but with natural untreated corks (it's possible that the seepage from the port is down to faulty corks). The bottles were a collection of supermarket empties and a few Youngs bottles.
It has been suggested (in the case of the wine) that the heat spell started to soften the silicon and that this was responsible for the seepage. I just wondered if it was usual to have a few bottles go like this or am I doing something wrong?
The bottles are stored in the garage on wine racks and the temperature is usually around 15-18 degrees C but obviously rose a bit during the hot spell.
The wine has no trace of gas in so internal pressure is not the issue. As this is the first time I've bottled wine I have no experience to fall back on.
Sorry if this is a rather stupid question but as I said I have no experience in this matter.
Thanks.
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