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Wine Cellar Flooded


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In fact, all day I've been resisting my urge to post somewhere on the board: Is everyone OK, with all the flooding?

So I'm fine, but my basement is a disaster and my budding cellar sustained a wee bit of damage. Here's a question that someone might (hopefully not too many of you) be able to help out with. I had only about a dozen bottles low the low racks when the waters came in. 2 of them are irreplaceable, 2 probably are cost prohibitive to replacing (wedding gift) and the rest good but definately not the end of the world.

Basically, is there any way to know, before opening them, if they're toast? From what I can tell, none were fully submerged, all had foil over the cork (I doubt that that matters much) and the water didn't rise all the way above the top of the cork. I don't know how long the water was there, anywhere up to 24 hours, but my guess/hope is closer to 3-4.

So winos, thoughts? Much thanks.

ETA, damn I seem to love me some parenthesis

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Basically, is there any way to know, before opening them, if they're toast?

They're not toast. If cork keeps wine on the inside, it also keeps water on the outside. The labels are undoubtedly ruined, but the wine inside will be fine.

Cheers,

Rocks.

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It all depends on the temperature of the water.

Could you expand on this a bit? I'm guessing that you're saying that if the water is too warm then you could end up damaging the wine. Is that what you're getting at? Does water too cold run a problem as well? Considering that the water is more than likely rainwater in this case I'd guess it'd be around 60-75F, would you expect that to pose a problem?

I didn't have any problems this time, but you never can tell about the next time, so I'd like to know beforehand...

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I'm inventing a flood-proof wine cellar and it will have a crazy warranty. Decanter magazine is going to pimp it for me. The death of a good bottle is a terrible thing. My Dad's so silly, though. I was talking to him about wine and flood damage and he's like: "Were the lables ok?" Silly man.

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They're not toast. If cork keeps wine on the inside, it also keeps water on the outside. The labels are undoubtedly ruined, but the wine inside will be fine.

Cheers,

Rocks.

I tend to agree. If you are worried about any of the bottles in particular, drink up!
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