A Re-Corking Good Time : Chateau Lafite-Rothschild Winemaker Gives Fine Vintages a 25-Year Checkup

In less time than it takes to sniff a cork and frown, wine importer and collector Sonny Martin saw the value of his 1875 bottle of Bordeaux plummet from $2,500 to $100.

“Well,” he shrugged, reconciled to drinking the wine now that it was no longer collectible, “we’re going to have a good dinner tonight.”

Martin’s tale was one of the few sad ones this week as wine collectors from throughout the West, chatting in the language of the grape about fruity aftertastes and undiscovered cellars, gathered in Burbank to have their valuable wines re-corked.

A ritual that should be performed every 25 years to preserve old wines, the re-corking at the Los Angeles International Culinary Institute was done by master winemaker Robert Revelle of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, one of the most famous names in wine.

While his wife and an aide scurried about arranging the dusty old bottles brought from as far as Seattle, Revelle, a stocky, silver-haired Frenchman whose father was a cellar master before him, popped the cork on each bottle and clinically sniffed it.

If, as in Martin’s case, he suspected something was amiss, he poured a little wine into a glass and tasted it.

No, he declared, he would not re-cork Martin’s bottle and add the valuable Rothschild label. “The old cork was broken,” he explained matter-of-factly in French. “So it’s not like wine anymore. It’s like tart grape.”

Martin disagreed with the verdict, but tried to keep a stiff upper lip.

“As a collector, you start to think of these things as objects of art rather than a food product,” he said. “Now I’ll actually do with it what is supposed to be done: I’ll drink it.”

Re-corking is important to the health of wine because old corks can dry up and allow air to seep in. Chateau Lafite-Rothschild is the only one of the major French winemakers that sends its re-corking team out on the road, according to Lina Gerometta, a spokeswoman for the organization.

The response from the United States to this year’s tour was so strong that the re-corking team had to stop in New York, Washington, Miami, Tampa, Fla., Houston, and elsewhere before setting down in Los Angeles this week. Long lines of wine collectors, each of whom had made a reservation, greeted the team when it began work Wednesday morning in a room inside the Classroom Restaurant at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center.

“We’ve been on the road since April 30,” Revelle’s wife, Marie, said wearily in French.

Revelle likes the work and considers recent vintages every bit the equal of those in the so-called golden era of winemaking in the mid-19th Century.

That golden era was represented Wednesday by a collection of five bottles of the 1870 vintage owned by Westside dermatologist Brad Klein, who estimates that his cellar of 2,500 bottles is worth about $100,000.

He said the 1870 wine is especially valuable to collectors, in part because the vintage was so powerful that it was considered undrinkable for 50 years. “It is the year collectors seek out the most,” said Klein, who has judged wine at the Los Angeles County Fair. He said the single magnum of 1870 wine that he owns is worth $10,000 to $15,000. And no, Revelle did not reject it.

Klein traced his magnum to a castle in Scotland. He said the wine was discovered at the castle about 100 years after it was bottled, and sold at auction.

Klein purchased his bottle later.

“They’re wonderful,” Klein said of the wines. “I tasted a little of this one today.”

Opening the bottles does not do any damage to the wine, according to Gerometta, because it is exposed to the atmosphere for only about 15 minutes while Revelle evaluates it.

If he agrees to certify it, Revelle adds a little wine he brought with him of a similar vintage to eliminate any open space between the cork and the wine. To Klein’s valuable wine, he added a touch of a 1964 vintage. The last step is to re-cork the bottle on a machine that injects carbon dioxide to drive out any remaining air.

Instead of the Lafite cork with the year 1875 etched into it, Martin went away with an ordinary, unadorned cork. “I think I’m happier,” he said. “With a $2,500 bottle of wine, I would have really had to talk myself into opening it.”