I Hate Corks!!

Yes, once on a champagne cork, of a minor (French) Champagne house. Don't remember which one, though. The wine was OK, it had no discernable taint.

Because for whatever reasons, free SO2 levels in the wine degrade at a much faster pace. After one year there is a marked difference (wine under sythetics are much more evolved), after two years they're almost 100% dead, oxydized.

Not for mid- to long-term agers.

Please, believe us, the cork industry is trying theirs best - but without success.

M.

YOU wrongly called it TCH, even after having been corrected that the substance in question is called TCA: 2,4,6-TriChloroAnisole.

This not a sentence.

Just because you don't believe me, that doesn't prove your point is right. Just try to broaden your mind that 1) cork problems go far beyond discernible TCA; and that 2) bottle variation in 99.99 of the cases is a cork problem.

M.

Michael, I don't recall saying I don't beleive you. But there is a lack of scientific evedence to your case and I only have had 1 example that may have been taint from a stelvin.

I simply do not beleive the now 20% of the bottle are bad. I can beleive 3 out of 100. Thats about it.

I called it TCH just to see how snitty some of you would become. :-). I got my snitty reader out and it defined a few of you. :-) Could not be typing errors or the GSM...(giveashitmeter).

That said, I know cork is an issue and if it is it may not be whats causing

20%. If this can be eliminated with stelvin or other screw caps I would be happy. But proof is needed that it will not negatively change the wines aging ability.

I never said that 20% of "all wines" were corked, only that it is close for the bottles that I open. This high figure may be due to my natural bad luck. I normally buy French and German whites while Dad drinks red. I don't recall opening a corked red before, are they less prone to this problem or is it harder to detect?

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net (kenneth mccoy) wrote in news:3928-43650E91-820 @storefull-3258.bay.webtv.net:

Well in MNSHO reds are as or more likely to be corked, but then I drink more red . . .

Could it be that he is more sensitive by virtue of his experience, and would notice contamination that most people would not?

Is "corked" something that either is, or isn't, or is it something that is by degree?

Jose

Ockham's razor, please. Cite one taint reason that's at least as probable as cork. And, no, winery taint is not accepted since by definition we talk about cork taint proven by a better back-up bottle.

It can.

Proof is here. You just don't want to acknowledge it. Try to read Tyson Stelzer's "Screwed for Good. The Case for Red Wines under Screwcaps". There is one chapter at

where you can also order the book.

M.

No. You should reconsider your definition of cork taint, that's all.

See my other posting.

M.

Or a Brett issue. Brett has been shown to cause a considerable amount of bottle variation. I haven't seen much on why this is so, but there have been tests where the wines were tasted and then the wine was tested for the level of Brett cells. Bottle variation correlated with the number of Brett cells in the wine. This occured even from bottles that were from the same bottling run.

If the wine is sterile filtered before bottling, the living Brett cells are removed and the wines tend to show less bottle variation. I would love to see some figures on wineries use of Stelvin and their use of sterile filtering. My suspicion is wineries that are more likely to use Stelvin are also more likely to use other techniques (like sterile filtering) to avoid bottle variation and tainted wine.

Andy

Very interesting remark, thank you. Can't really comment on this fact since my tastings of screw-capped wines to 95% refer to stainless steel vinified whites where there is little chance of brett.

Hannes Hirsch, otoh, ages his top whites almost one year in large oak casks (not new), and he seems not to encounter brett - and bottle variation - problems.

I have had a few Austrian barrel aged reds under Vino-Lok glass stopper, but not enough to draw a valid conclusion. For the moment it looks as there are no bottle variation problems, but then the wines came from very quality conscious growers where brett would not be an issue, I suppose.

M.

Michael, Perhaps the crux of the debate here is a semantic one. The word "taint" implies a contamination (i.e., something foreign entering the wine), but we might instead call this broader issue "cork failure" since some amount of the bottle variation arises from leaky corks that permit the entry of oxygen (a well-documented problem). Of course, if one considers oxygen a foreign agent, then this is still a taint, so as I said we're back to semantics... ;-)

On a related note, some amount of fruit scalping is most certainly due to TCA or related haloanisoles: on several occasions (such as tasting with Ian and St. H. in NZ) I've detected TCA in a wine that others found flat and fruitless. Since I am a TCA-sensitive, I think that we can ascribe some percentage of fruit scalping to low-level TCA.

Such a high percentage is simply unforgivable, Michael. In other circumstances, one would have to question storage conditions, but in this case they are likely beyond reproach, leaving the cork as the main (only?) culprit.

Bring on the screwcaps! Mark Lipton

M.