Imagine tasting bits of cork in your wine.

It sounds pretty gross, right? There are several circumstances that can cause cork to fall into your wine. Maybe your cork was faulty, or maybe the arid climate caused it to disintegrate. Whatever the circumstances may be, crumbly cork in your wine is no fun. Now, if your wine is corked, that’s a different story. In this circumstance, it’s best to just toss the wine out. But if bits of cork simply ended up in your wine, the situation can be salvaged.

The trick is to filter your wine. One way of doing this is by taking a cheesecloth or two and securing it around the opening of a bottle of wine with a rubber band, then pour. Hopefully, most of the cork will be blockaded by the cheesecloth. If some cork still falls through, you can use multiple cheesecloths. If you’re having guests over, you can filter the whole bottle into a carafe and serve your wine from that. If you’re enjoying your wine solo, you can pour the wine directly into your glass.