How to Open an Old Bottle of Wine, According to a Sommelier

Wine director Drew Brady likens a 30-year-old cork to a 30-year-old person. Bodies, like corks, can feel physically sound when suddenly a moment of fragility comes along. That’s the advice he gives his staff at Long Count, a new wine bar in Manhattan’s East Village that only pours wines aged for at least 10 years. That commitment is no easy task. Opening a wine with decades of age is risky: With maturity, corks become frail, and damage can result in anything from chunks to tiny remnants of the stopper in the wine.