Experimental wine bottle tracks oxygen moving through the cork
Put a cork in it
The small bit of air in the bottle sees oxygen and other chemicals move in and out.
Most people perceive a cork in a bottle of wine as a simple plug meant to keep the liquid in and the outside world out. In the recent study published in Science Advances, a team of French scientists demonstrated the cork is way more than that. By regulating the oxygen transfer into and out of the wine bottle, it works almost as another ingredient.
“Twenty years ago, our group focused on the oxidation and aging of wine and all its parameters,” Thomas Karbowiak said. “Oxygen diffusion through cork stoppers is one of these parameters.” Karbowiak is a chemist at the University of Burgundy, France, and the senior author of the study.
The mini-bottle experiment
Oxidation is one of the key drivers of wine aging. A slow, limited ingress...
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