evelopment of beautiful “Bottle Bouquet” is a primary goal of long term wine cellaring. It’s well established that bottle bouquet requires the absence of oxygen to develop. Wine would die early and fail to age properly in bottle (being unable to develop bottle bouquet) if corks were to breathe air, so it’s a good thing they don’t. Although sound wine corks don’t breathe, I admit they have a confusing way of showing it. Just imagine: corks never inhale, and they exhale only once (right after bottling). The exhale is slow, lasts a few weeks and is only a partial one. To understand this, look at the cork structure.