A Safety Warning

It is said a smart person learns from his or her own mistakes, a wise person learns from the mistakes of others.

Read and learn.

Continuing my current fascination with sparkling wines, I picked one up on the way home yesterday evening. The winery isn’t important for this story.

After chilling the wine, I began to open it. I removed the foil capsule, and as I always do, I stood the bottle upright and placed a towel over the cork and wire cage. I loosened the wire cage and began twisting the bottle while holding the cork still. It turned and turned, but wasn’t coming out.

I carefully looked under the towel to see if the cork had budged at all, and noticed that the wire cage wasn’t as loose as it should be.

Foolishly, I took the towel off so I could manipulate the cage a bit more.

BAM! The cork and cage went flying straight up out of the bottle, ricocheting off the ceiling. The cage landed on another counter about three feet away to my left. The cork landed three feet away directly in front of me after its collision with the ceiling.

I was stupid. Sparkling wines are under tremendous pressure, and one should NEVER, EVER take a chance with the cork. Had I kept the towel in place, the cork would most likely have shot into the towel, which would have absorbed the energy and kept the thing from flying in the kitchen.

Thanks to dumb luck and the intervention of probably sixteen guardian angels, no one was hit by the cork, and the ceiling sustained no damage. But this experience should teach us all that one can never be too careful with sparkling wines. Even though the cork looks like it’s in place, it can come out without any warning.

So as you head into the holidays and buy your sparkling wines, remember this lesson. Don’t take any crap from anyone who calls you a wuss for being careful. If they do, tell them to go stand next to a semi tire while it blows out and see if they are comfortable with the idea.

Be safe and enjoy the bubbly. Don’t turn a great wine into a source of tragedy.