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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!brl-tgr!wmartin
From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.wines
Subject: Wine and Beer -- preservation issues
Message-ID: <731@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 15:43:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.731
Posted: Thu Aug 15 15:43:02 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 08:03:01 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: USAMC ALMSA, St. Louis, MO
Lines: 35

A couple queries:

Re wines opened too young to check them out -- can such a wine be
rebottled and stored away for continued aging? (Perhaps by putting the
untasted part in a half-sized bottle and recorking it [accepted that
this probably needs a machine to do well], and putting it back in the
cellar? Or will the one-time opening, decanting, etc., have had such an
effect that a) it will not age from then on, at least properly; or,
b) even though it will age it will have been altered in such a manner that
it is no longer representative of the rest of the bottles that have aged
untouched, so it could not be reliably checked again later as a test of
the batch?) This wouldn't be worth the trouble for a cheap wine, but I
could see it for something that cost, say, $20+ per bottle.

Re beers, exotic and imported or regional bought elsewhere -- my first
thought on reading the posting of the person who disliked the Anchor
beer he bought at a "local liquor store" away from the Bay area was that
he got an overpriced but spoiled pack of beer. Would not that explain
his antagonistic reaction? There is a local store here (St. Louis) with
hundreds (or so it seems) of imported beers. They cannot have much
turnover for much of this stock -- I'm sure much of it is old and
spoiled and not representative of the label. Yet I know of no way to
determine this prior to purchase, and, then, aftwrwards, how to tell if
the beer is really spoiled or it is a type you don't like, or a flavor
you don't agree with... This problem keeps me from trying many different
beers. 

Are there some generic rules about bottled or canned beers, in terms of
age? Is any beer over "n" months old likely to be undrinkable, especially
if it spent 3 months of that in a ship and sitting on a dock in the sun?

Regards,
Will Martin

UUCP/USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin   or   ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA