Tip #4: Cop a Feel

That’s right. Stroking the top of a bottle with your thumb can tell you something about its storage. If the cork appears raised in comparison to the top of the bottle (you can feel it through the foil), it’s not happy to see you; it’s actually because the wine was exposed to heat for a long time, causing the wine to expand and the forcing the cork out of the bottle. If the cork appears to be depressed (no, not in the Prozac sense), it means that the bottle was stored upright, dehydrating the cork and making it shrivel. In either scenario, pass on the bottle because a compromised cork could lead to cesspool in a bottle.

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