CHAMPAGNE

[MARK TONAJ]

I HAVE JUST CONSUMED A 1980 BOTTLE OF DOM PERIGNON. FOR THE PAST 12 YEARS I HAVE GIVEN THIS BOTTLE A 1/2 TURN EVERY COUPLE OF MONTHS.IT WAS MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE TO DRINK THAN TO TAKE CARE OF. JUST CURIOUS TO FIND OUT JUST HOW MUCH MONEY I DRANK AWAY. DOES ANYONE HAVE A ROUGH IDEA, OR MAYBE I WOULD BE BETTER OFF NOT KNOWING?

[lisashea]

I'd guess $150, from the prices I'm seeing on various auction houses. It depends a lot on how it was stored and such.

Out of curiosity, why were you turning the bottles? When Champagne is being made, they turn the fermentation bottles to remove the sediment, but then they remove that sediment and cork the bottle. Once that's done, you don't really want to be moving aging bottles ...

Lisa, Wine Guide
wine.about.com

[lisashea]

I tried to respond to your message via email, but it bounced back with "user unknown"!!

Hmmmm, but you have the bottle laying on its side, right? The entire cork bottom should *always* be completely submerged. Turning it won't change that at all [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img] It's not like the wine is leaking down out the cork, otherwise you'd be losing Champagne! In fact, if it lays stationary, it has a nice seal formed. By spinning it around and shaking it up, you are giving
the cork more opportunity to shake a bit loose each time and lose integrity
...

The best thing when letting wines age is to just let them *sit*. In fact, with ports and red wines you never want to disturb them, because they create a layer of sediment along the lower edge of the bottle that you
definitely would not want to mix back up into the wine ...

Lisa Shea, wine guide
http://wine.about.com

[Kcwhippet]

I have heard from a usually reliable source that sparkling wines should be stored in an upright position. I didn't ask, but I assume this is for short term storage.