Chemistry and physics

Question

What are the reasons why new wine is not kept in old bottles?

Answer 1

Hi Sampson,

There could be other reasons too. Old wine may tend to deposit solids on the inside of the bottle. Some of these are mobile (and when you pour that wine, you must avoid pouring them into a glass!), but some of them are crusted inside the bottle. When the bottles are rinsed before use (if they are!), such a crust would tend to be retained and would present a splendid hide-out place for various bacteria and molds, especially the bacteria responsible for turning ethanol into vinegar. Therefore, your wine would rapidly turn into vinegar, or to other nasty-smelling organic materials.

Not to mention, bottle-makers need to be making more bottles, or they starve!

-- Cheers, --Mr. d.

Answer 2

Sounds like a Biblical New Testament question. Even Bill Clinton talked about his New Covenant.

or what's that movie about an actor who couldn't survive the new talkies, as his female replacement said "out with the old in with the new" driving him to suicide.

but chemistry explains it all, and more.

wine improves with age, like cheese

then there's this other theory. If you put new wine in old bottles, the wine drinkers will think it's old wine, from just seeing the bottle label they are like victims of the placebo effect.

so for Christmas or another gift giving occasion for a wine drinker take some new wine and put it in an old wine bottle and presto chango the expert wine drinker is fooled. To keep the person honest, keep wine in the bottle it came in. Although even doctors give sugar pills for placebo effect, so maybe it works well for wine too. Why buy an expensive bottle of rare wine, when you can just put cheap wine in an old bottle and pass it off as old wine?