Delaforce quinta da Corte 91 disintegrating corks

[mpij]

Bought some bottles from Majestic Wine a couple of months ago. Have found that on opening the cork disintegrates when i try to pull it out. Port has still been good but would sugest better to drink now rather than keeping. Thankfully I have a good supply of coffee filter papers(as I make coffee with cafetiere or espresso machine perhaps I should describe them as port filter papers) as second atempt at cork removal always ends up with remains ending up in bottle.

[RAYC]

How annoying.

I decanted one of these last year and the cork on that bottle was reasonably solid (picture of cork here), with just the final half centimetre coming apart as it came up through the neck. Unfortunately, while the cork was sound, the wine itself was duff!

Could it be that the stock you purchased from Majestic had been stored standing up for some time (causing the corks to dry)?

[mpij]

Quite possible, will drink my 1 remaining and not buy more (unless going cheap)

[RAYC]

Looking around, another report (and picture) of a duff Corte 91 cork from Majestic stock is here

Also a comment on cellartracker here and a reference to an "exploding cork" on flickr here.

My first guess would still be that this was a Majestic-specific issue due to their storage (or the storage of the stash before they acquired it)...but could be a wider issue...