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Around one third of my port collection is stored in a proper underground cellar under my sisters shop. I went down this morning to retrieve 3 of the bottles required for The F-Plan Offline and was horrified with what I found when I opened the case in which one of them was stored. The case is an OWC that once contained Gould Campbell 1991 and contains a cardboard inner case. About a year ago I filled it with 12 odd bottles that were taking up too much room at home but had little chance of being opened.

When I removed the lid from the case there were 2 or 3 beasts crawling (quickly) around the edge between the wooden and cardboard cases. On opening the cardboard case I found more of these critters inside. They were 2-3mm long, up to 1mm wide at the shoulder with a shiny brass-coloured armour that made up around 2/3rd of their length and tapered away towards the tail.

I have removed all of the cases from the cellar but have not yet emptied them all out to see if the infestation has spread or is limited to one case.

Does anyone know what these are? If so, please advise what I need to do to get rid of them.

Thanks

Derek

I've done some digging around on the net and the closest match I can find is (b) in the following image although the ones in my case are slightly fatter than this drawing.

Now that I have seen them in daylight (which they do not like!) the colour is almost identical to the coat of a Weimaraner

Has anyone seen these inside cases or in their cellars before?

Pleasant!!!

Please confirm that the F-plan corks are OK — that these critters haven’t been sipping at the important stuff.

I can confirm that only one of the F-Plan bottles was in this case and the cork is intact.

Derek

As the bug you suspect is from Southern Europe, likes dead wood, dark damp coditions,etc, do you think you've been lucky enough to transport some Portuguese creepy crawlies all the way to Bonny Scotland, only to see them flourish...where they shouldn't!
They may have been microscopic eggs on the wood.

Still not having Global Warming?

I had the same thought, these could be portugues bugs. Global warming has definately not hit my sisters cellar.

Derek

I think I've seen these before Derek - I suspect you have an infestation of Anobium Punctatum - better known as Common Furniture Beetle or Woodworm.

Most of the time the larvae chomp away at your furniture - but they also adore wine cases. Then very briefly, they emerge in late summer, crawl everywhere, mate, lay eggs - and die.

In addition to wine cases, they are known to sometimes chomp corks - so check your wine boxes, and if they've got the tell-tale holes, unload the bottles and burn them - or give them a good drink of Cuprinol.

Tom

PS: I have seen wine cases with woodworm holes are that are obliquely sliced through - so were present when the boards for the cases were cut.

So you might well have imported some Portuguese woodworm - your sister will be pleased...

The bugs Tom talks of...



Don't seem to look to much like the drawing. But I'm no David Attenborough.

Alan

My guess would be some type of silverfish or firebrat. There are species in the family that like to eat cellulose: check the boxes and the labels of the bottles for signs of nibbling. They are very fast, and extremely hard to get rid of (we have an investation of them in the office, and they wreck havoc on our archive).

Picture here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lepi ... harina.jpg

Stevie,

That could be it. The colour is different (and more metalic) and the legs and antenna are much thinner than those of the specimin in the picture but the general body configuration is the same. I would assume that there are lots of different variations of these critters so I think this is what I have.

The good news is I can probably blame my sister (at this point in time it seems to be my fault) as the cellar and shop above were formerly an office and were full of paper, old files and general office gunk. Presumably a prime site for these guys? My wooden and cardboard cases seem to have been assimilated into their environment over the past year or so.

I now need to find some new containers for around 100 bottles of port as all of those that are currently in my car will be going in the bin today


What a nightmare

Derek

PS: Tom, if you have any spare empty cases lying around can you please keep hold of them for me and I'll pick them up when I come for the F's?

If they are much thinner, maybe they need a good meal???

You dont have to thank me.

Alan

I have loads of wine boxes - both wood and cardboard - I hate throwing them away!

Help yourself!

Tom

Thanks, Tom - the job of removing all the bottles and throwing away the cases today will now be less stressfull

Derek

These are the 114 brave soldiers who returned safely from their torment at the nibbling mouths of the Silverfish Axis of Evil.



None of their containers survived the ordeal and all were ruthlessly incinerated in my patio fire this evening

During the liberation exercise all enemy forces were found to have vanished and have no doubt decided to occupy the boot of my car

Despite the lack of evidence of WMD's found during and after Operation Shock 'n' Awe, I feel fully justified in authorising the mobilisation of the invasion force as the evidence available before action was taken demonstrated a clear and present danger to our heros in the above picture.

As you may be able to see from the picture some of these are very rare indeed and would have been almost impossible to replace. Some examples are:

• Graham's Malvedos 1965 x 12 (my birth year)
• Graham's Malvedos 1968 x 5 (Jo's birth year)
• Graham's Malvedos 1964 x 1 (only one I've ever seen)
• Quinta das Licieras 1993 x 24 halves (Only VP produced in my Son's birth year)
• Sandeman Ruby (believed bottled 1930's)
• Fonseca 20 Yr Old Tawny (bottled 1978)
• Fonseca 30 Yr Old Tawny (bottled 1982)
• Taylor's 10 Yr Old Tawny (bottled 1976)
• Taylor's 20 Yr Old Tawny (bottled 1973)
• Taylor's 20 Yr Old Tawny (bottled 1976)

Hopefully Global Warming isn't true and we're not about to have some freak hot weather whilst these are all above ground

Derek

HQ is delighted to learn that Operation Preserve Portdom has been a success.

I cant get past them bloody awful tiles!!!

See here for closure on The Tiles issue

Derek