Wine aging: a bottleneck story

Abstract The sporadic oxidation of white wines remains an open question, making wine shelf life a subjective debate. Through a multidisciplinary synoptic approach performed as a remarkable case study on aged bottles of white wine, this work unraveled a yet unexplored route for uncontrolled oxidation. By combining sensory evaluation, chemical and metabolomics analyses of the wine, and investigating oxygen transfer through the bottleneck/stopper, this work elucidates the importance of the glass/cork interface. It shows unambiguously that the transfer of oxygen at the interface between the cork stopper and the glass bottleneck must be considered a potentially significant contributor to oxidation state during the bottle aging, leading to a notable modification of a wine’s chemical signature.