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Reasons for bottle breakage include defects in design or material, accidental damage in

bottling, excessive weight in by stacking in storage, banging the bottle in distribution,

temperature changes, and, in general, mishandling. There is no mention of damage

caused when opening a bottle! They further suggest that 95% of the damage is done by a

blow to the bottle and only 5% are from manufacturing defects and the filling process.

In September 1998 the investigative firm Advanced Imaging

and Analysis published a study entitled "Microscopy and

Digital Micro-Imaging: Fractures in Glass." According to AIA

owner, Marta Flohr, a forensic engineer investigated a case of

bottle breaking on behalf of an insurance company. The

claimant said that he was cut when the neck of the wine

bottle he was opening broke. After exhaustive examination of

the bottle, the engineer determined that the breakage was not

caused by preexisting damage to the bottle. He concluded

that the "bottle was broken by force exerted from within the

bottle."

Aha! Is this a case of a cork ejector gone awry? Marta asked

the engineer for further details and learned that a corkscrew

was used, not a cork ejector, and it was not used

properly. He concluded:

1. The corkscrew was inserted at an angle,

allowing its end to contact the inside of the

bottle

2. The user did not pull straight up to extract the

cork, but, rather, pulled to the side

3. The bottle broke because of mechanical

impact exerted on its interior

4. There was no evidence of an external impact

to the bottle.

The engineer also noted that he was familiar with a few other personal injury cases

involving wine bottles. All of these cases involved mechanical corkscrews not cork

ejectors. A correlation between the amount of alcohol consumed prior to the accidents

was also noted.