Parker looks to 2015

I had that same experience at a ZAP tasting last year. It would not be so surprising at a public tasting but to find bottles half empty before anyone says anything is strange or that are a lot of people that are totally insensitive.

Come to think of it, we are not insensitive at all, it is you that are oversensitive... After all, the majority is the norm. :-) Anders

One of the places we disagree is that you assert that two bottles of the same wine, one being tainted and one not, proves that the problem is with the cork. In my experience, that's just not the case. There are many other factors that can explain this. Multiple bottles of the same wine known to be contaminated by TCA at the winery and lab tests indicated some bottles showed taint and others didn't.

Andy

Sung to the tune of Don Ho's Tiny Bubbles

Schmutzy barrels screw up the wine polluted water in the hose make it less then fine Too much sulphur make me want to drink milk Tiny bubbles of bacteria makes such a stink.............

I have not experienced the 15% cork taint rate that Parker is now using as the industry wide rate. My experience is closer to 8% but I too may have missed some chilled whites. What I have experienced is that some wineries fall victim to this more often than others. Two years ago, one winery whose wines I tasted often was closer to 25%. That makes it a non-random event when you find a corked bottle. I am sure that the 15% number includes the wieners that some how manage to monopolize the bad corks.

There are so many it's difficult to list them all. There is individual bottle contamination. Contamination in hoses that can wash out as more wine is passed through. There is contamination in individual barrels. Some wineries have indicated that the TCA contamination was air born from chlorine being used and washed down drains, so we have to take into account changes in air flow patterns in the winery. The list goes on and on.

If we use side by side bottles as proof that it's the cork, how do we explain that chances are the two corks came from the same bag and very possibly from the same tree. Why aren't both corks contaminated with TCA and in turn contaminate both bottles.

I just think this issue is a lot more complex than some would like us to believe. Yes, I think an increased use of screw caps will reduce the occurence of TCA contamination, for mutiple reasons, I just don't think it's the silver bullet.

Andy

I do. In the 30+ years that screw-caps are used, I am not aware of complaints about bottle variation, except for obvious problems (leakers from badly adjusted machinery or mechnical impact on the closure).

M.