I just opened yet another corked wine! I think I'm running about 20% corked wines now. This one is a Jurancon I've had before and liked- had a Dr. Loosen in Carmel last week in a restaurant that had to be sent back; the next one was fine. Add these to the two I had last week that were heat damaged and I'm near the end of my rope.
And repeating false statements don't make them truer.
I taste professionally between 2000 and 3000 wines a year, and we encounter cork taint rates of up 20 to 30 percent. By "cork taint" I do not understand the conservative "a perceptible amount of TCA" definition, but "even the slightest bottle variation when it's confirmed by a better back-up bottle", which includes not only TCA, but tainting by TeCA and half another dozen chemical substances and compounds coming from the cork, it does include fruit scalping and aleatoric oxidation.
The nummer of wines I have tasted undere screw-cap is a solid three digit figure, and I have yet to come across a tainted bottle or any discernible bottle variation.
This goes in line with what Jamie Goode has said in the chapter on closures in his book:
or
This is especially interesting when it comes to the backgropund of cork spoilage chemistry. Another quote from this source:
| I'd also add the following observation - big surveys of cork | taint incidence have found it largely confined to cork-sealed | bottles, with virtually no incidences in screwcapped or | synthetic sealed bottles (this argues against environmental | taint). However, recent data from the international wine | challenge found musty taint in 2% of synthetic sealed bottles | and 0% in screwcapped bottles (3.3% of cork-sealed bottles were | tainted iirc). This was from 13 000 bottles opened.
The zero taint rate in bottles with screw-caps runs along the experience wine-growers here in Austria have made.
Still sounds intriguing to me, since the screw-capping growers I know here in Austria (all of them among the quality conscious) unanimously told me that they never had encountered bottle variation. But then their experience (and mine, of course) is not older than two years at maximum.
I guess I have been lucky - I've never had a cork-tainted wine. But I wouldn't miss them much if they went away. Of course, I never cellar anything - I buy wines when desired, so maybe my opinion means a little less.
Dan-O (screwcaps ARE a damn sight easier to open!)
"Sorry, I simply disagree. I think that TCH is the cause of most tainted wines...but its not alway associated to the cork. Chateaux Montelena, BV and others have all had issues with TCH that had more to do with their sanitation issues than that of the cork. "
First of all, as Michael said, it's TCA (trichloroanisole).
While it's true that there can sources of TCA besides the cork (witness BV '97-'99 and Ducru '86-'90), the vast majority that consumers encounter come from cork (even the cork industry, if pressed, will admit that, though they'll always go for the lowest figures). Saying that we shouldn't switch closures due to the fact that there are other (minority) reasons for TCA contamination is like saying "well, some people get lung cancer without smoking, so there's no reason not to puff away."
Plus, as Michael mentions, cork is an imperfect closure, and a lot of bottle variation can probably be attributed to things such as variable integrity of closures.
I recently opened a different Dr. Loosen wine that had a silicone disc attached to the bottom of the regular cork, so that the wine never touched the cork. Has anyone else seen this yet? If one was going to that trouble why not use synth cork? It did seem like a good idea though. And if, as I read, TCA results as a reaction to chlorine cleaners why not use another cleaning method? I thought I read about experiments with ozone-- how about pure alcohol?
Dale, there are lung cancers that are due to smoking. There are others not due to smoking.
Recently the only TCA--(TCA or TCH-whatever you call it) is not restricted to only corks. When someone now claims 20% I have to assume that is way over the top.
I am not ready to move to stelvins for my quality reds. For daily under $10 wines in USA for instant consumption red or white I don't really care.
DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.