The message k
from Sacha contains these words:

curious

Why do you want to do it?

/curious

As I've said to Nick, it's been found in a cupboard here and the corks on
some bottles are looking very dodgy. In fact, two bottles of the dozen had
lost so much of the port, either through leaking or evaporation that they
had to be thrown away.

Hmmm. They've been standing upright all this time? If so, go ahead with
the cotton wool - I don't hold out much hope for any quality.

Sorry.

As the port was a christening present to my son from
his now dead Godfather, he's quite keen not to lose any more of it. But the
clincher is that it has to be sent to Jersey somehow and in its present
state, I doubt it would all get there! Now, I may be wrong but I have the
notion that you shouldn't re-cork old bottles but should decant into new
bottles and re-cork those. If I'm wrong, I'll be very glad because it will
be much easier simply to re-cork the present bottles.

I think you'd better decant them all. Some may not be any good at all,
so don't 'blend' any till you've tried it.

Most off-licences do catering, and have stacks of empty bottles. You
might get them to save corks for you too, and these (with tops - not
wine-type corks) can be re-used if sterilised in boiling water. That
swells the cork a bit too.

From a winemaking shop/participating pharmacist, get a packet of
shrink-wrap over-cork caps, and you can make a good job of it - keeps
the air out. You shrink them by either upending the bottle and dunking
them in hot water, or with a viciously hot hair-dryer.

Bottles with corks should be stored on their sides, or the corks shrink...

--
Rusty
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