Cork taint is caused by loose fitting corks. BBC reports.

Ian, Did they possibly revise the webpage in response to "Furious from Forgès"? Here's what it says now:

"Cork tainting occurs chiefly when a chemical known as TCA contaminates the wine, usually from the cork."

which doesn't sound exactly like what you were responding to.

Mark Lipton

Looks like they corrected now, go tiger! :)

In this case you should have copied the story rather than linking to it. You will now see the error is fixed.

Yes, and remarkably quickly too.

Basically the Beeb copied the gist of the Decanter story, and because it was being posted for the "great unwashed" the reporter (sic) kindly explained that cork taint occurs when "ill fitting coks let oxygen into the bottle , ruining the wine".

I did point out - moderately pungently, thatanyone with half the IQ of an oyster would realise that in a champagne bottle with an internal pressure of several bars, the risk of wine being oxidised was hardly the most serious likely consequence of an ill fitting cork!

Their correction was lifted almost verbatim from my explanation of what caused corked wine.

-- All the best Fatty from Forges

I do hope that "Furious in Forgès got credit in the byline ;-)

Cheers! Mark Lipton

Grin!! What _I_ hope is that the idiot who posted the story is made to drink a bottle of corked wine every day till Christmas next year.

-- All the best Fatty from Forges

Ah, so it seems you got there first. I know of at least one other person (no, not me, though I was tempted) that put them right.