Cork |

By Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

That is hobo talk for shut up, but since I am the only person speaking (metaphorically speaking) and am unlikely to quiet down for the foreseeable future, I guess the hobos will have to deal with it.

I am winding down my tale of the making of the Rebel Gold. There isn’t much left to do. But at least one of those tasks is darn important. And that is inserting the cork.

Like everything else in my house, this process was not without its ups and downs. See, Kevin and I bought the “cheap” corker. How cheap you say? Well, it is hobo wine… so it was free. Two free pieces of red plastic that allegedly inserts the cork into the bottle.

Seems simple enough, right? Well sure. Except at this point, neither Kevin, nor I can find the instructions for the wine kit… I think they wandered off… So now? We are winging it. No problem, Kevin and I are both highly educated people. This should be a breeze. So we insert the cork into the red-thingy, set it over the bottle and push. Nothing. Ooops. Kevin suggests that we soak the cork.

I discounted this, as cork is used due to its ability to RESIST water. Oh, silly, silly me…

It turns out that while I am correct.. BUT, according to my friend Matt, who initially found the answer for me, and Wikipedia, cork needs to be heated and moisturized in order for it to being transformed from hard and dry to moist and elastic. And elastic is what I needed the cork to be to jam the cork (which seemed slightly oversized for the bottle) into said bottle.

So I threw on a pot of water to boil and then when it got going really good, threw in some corks (15 or so) turned off the heat and put on the lid. Five minutes later, I put a damp, warm cork into the red-thingy placed it over the bottle gave a push.. and whoosh! The cork magically slid into the bottle.

It turned out to be so easy even Imelda, my 12 year old gave it a try.

So there you go… the hard part of the wine making is done. Unless the labels I bought for the bottles turn out to be a nightmare…