Originally Posted by
rjlon
Ah ignorance is bliss. Commercial aircraft do indeed have pressurized cabins and baggage/cargo holds.... however aircraft are not pressurized at sea level pressure and long flights would expose the wine to the lower pressure. A number of carriers use older aircraft to Hawaii which can pressurize at 7 or 8,000 feet but newer aircraft will be about 4 - 5,000 feet. There is also a lack of humidity in aircraft ventilation though newer equipment like 787 partially addresses this. Again on long flights this may effect corks in a wine bottle.
Don't believe it? Take the bottled water you get on the plane, drink the water so bottle is full of air whilst at cruise altitude. Screw up the top tightly and watch what happens to the bottle as you descend...
Which has effectively nothing to do with what I said. The cabin and the hold are pressurized to the same level - whatever that level may be. The rest is simply ridiculous wine snobbery. If the wine is in a glass bottle, sealed with a cork, then the only surface the air pressure can act upon is the end of the cork. Cork is used to seal wine bottles precisely because it is elastic. At 8,000 feet, air pressure is 10.9 psi. At sea level, it's 14.7 psi. Are you really suggesting that a difference of 3.8 psi is going to do anything more than make end of the cork bulge a little bit?
Don't believe it? Take a glass bottle of Perrier, or some other screw-cap snob water, drink it empty while at altitude. Reseal the cap and watch the bottle carefully as you descend.... I promise you that is 30 minutes of your life that you won't get back.