Stelvin or not?

I just bought 6000 of the new generation Supremecorq. They seem to have addressed these problems very well. I'm also hopeful about the SO2 dimunition problem. I know they're aware of these issues and are working toward solutions. BTW, I have no commercial interest in the company - only in better bottle closures.

Tom S

Ive been officially quoted!

Just to add to the debate, I know of another product entering production called Zork which claims to be better than all previous methods (well, it would - wouldnt it!).

Actually, I am friends with an investor in the project who is also a wine producer here in Australia. Currently, he uses cork and Stelvin.

MAUOMBO

The 5% to 15% numbers I've seen usually refer to "corked" wines or wines tainted with TCA. There are other sources of TCA besides the cork itself.

Going to Stelvin or synthetic cork is not going to eliminate TCA taint completely. Hopefully better winery practices will help also.

Andy

Salut/Hi JEP,

le/on 10 Feb 2004 05:23:59 -0800, tu disais/you said:-

Agreed. Any idea of the figures? I've heard it's under 1 in 5000 bottles.

Agreed, but it would reduce it to levels that are perfectly acceptable IMO.

Sure Hi is fine (Ontario)

Sorry, yes when I meant all, I could have clarified except white wines with proven ageability such as those mentioned (mainly White Burg, and dessert wines)

Exactly and that's just one way in which the quality of the corks will increase. Basically what would probably happen is mostly 'fine wine' would remain using corks. These producers would pressure and be willing to pay for only the highest quality corks. Therefore since there will only be a demand for the highest quality corks, those are the only corks that will be produced. One of the ways they would do that, is by harvesting the trees less often and older.

I'm not sure if you're implying a wine normally has (needs?) contact with some air or not... My understanding is that the whole notion of 'corks allow a wine to breathe' is the most persitent false myth in wine. If ANY air was allowed into contact with the wine it would spoil (just like every other food product would eventually spoil if exposed to any air). I suppose if exposed to tiny amounts, the process simply could just take a long time.

Salut/Hi Peter Muto,

le/on 10 Feb 2004 06:48:43 -0800, tu disais/you said:-

Thanks. I know it's a bit rude of me, but I remind people of this from time to time, which TENDS to remind me too! ;-))

I think we're in pretty close agreement on this.

Well, accepted wisdom is that aging isn't an entirely anaerobic (or reductive) phenomenon. In fact, for many years, it was held to be an entirely _oxidative_ process. I lobbed in the crown caps in champagne fact, to show that aging (at least in champagne) can take place entirely without oxygen.

Well, if it's a false myth, then why bother with cork at all? The one thing we can be sure about, is that with time, long stored cork closed wines lose some liquid, which is replaced - self evidently - with gas. And this gas HAS to have come through/past the cork and thus to have contained some oxygen. Notwithstanding the champagne evidence, I still suspect that wine aging (especially if it's to happen in a reasonable time scale) has to be a combination of both oxidative and reductive processes.

Well in a sense, one could argue that aging (in the french sense of "bonifier" - improve) is merely a stage in the process of spoiling. I find it hard to draw a line and say "on this side we have an improving wine" and "on that side we have a wine that's spoiling". Do you see what I'm getting at here? I see a smooth process from a purple, tannic young wine, through a fully mature "claret" red wine, to an old bricky pale wine, all on secondary and tertiary aromas and on to a pale brown dead liquid.And I strongly suspect that oxygen plays _some_ part in this process.

Hi Ian,

Unfortunately, no figures. I've just seen a number of reports from wineries that blamed wide scale TCA contamination on non-cork sources. Some pulled the wines, others did not.

I think it would be very difficult to put a number to this. When we open a bottle of '82 bordeaux to find it's "corked", do we really know the source of the TCA? How do we trace it back after 20 years?

It's also in the best interest of some wineries just to keep their mouths shut when they find a significant percentage of their wines tainted. Many consumers will not recognize the taint and most of the ones that do, will blame the cork. Why would the winery publicly say "sorry, but it wasn't the cork, it was our use of chlorine bleach to clean the barrel".

BTW, I applaude the wine maker that sent you the notice.

IMHO, a two pronged approach is needed to fix the problem. Use of stelvin on many wines (especially those not requiring long term aging) and spreading the word to wineries on practices that can lead to TCA taint.

Andy

The wineries are becoming pretty well conscious about the potential effects of using chlorine based cleaners around the winery. The one I work in uses peroxides these days for tanks and floors, and ozone for barrels. The TCA problems in the barrel room at Beaulieu Vineyards was a real wake-up call!

I've been lobbying for a Stelvin bottling line, but that idea hasn't really caught fire here yet. It would be a $50K investment, and that's a show-stopper at the moment. For the time being, many of us are getting by with synthetic corqs. Those have improved considerably since their introduction a few years ago, and the big producers are spending a lot of time and $$ on R&D efforts to improve them further.

Tom S

I think cork's are (and will still) be used for a long time simply for tradition (though it hasn't been that long a time relatively) but especially the associated perception of fine wine with corks. Hrmm, that is completely true...though the lower the fill on an old wine is a general indication of the wine being oxidized correct? Eg, if I've got a bottle of 45 Mouton, and it has a low shoulder fill, that's cause for concern. What you describe above about the gas having to have entered the bottle via the cork, has probably happened (which is something that can and does happen, but it's not generally a good thing...)

I guess the caveat being that ideally you do want a pale brown dead liquid and unless you're English, you don't want an old bricky pale wine (just joking ;-) Ideally the wine would at least never enter the 'brown dead' phase... That it does happen eventually could be a result of the imprefection of cork closures. I wonder if one were to close a wine with glass, or screwcap, in other words a complete air-tight seal, how long a wine might last? 50 years?

100? indefinitely without ever 'dying'?

It's pretty easy in some wines to see that TCA is from the cork. Any wine fermented and stored in stainless steel, and bottled within a relatively short timeframe, if it exhibits TCA- In such an instance, one can properly assume that the TCA is due to cork taint. In such wines, I'm experiencing around 10% bad corks. There are other funky smells, aside from TCA, in a few of the bottles, but it's mainly TCA.

It's true that TCA can be evidenced in wooden barrels and tanks, and other wood-based wine contact surfaces. However, proper handling of those items, in the manner historically considered satisfactory, should yield no higher percentage of TCA-tainted bottles than was historically evident prior to the cork problem. Why is TCA getting so much press now? The overwhelming cork problem, not the cellar problems. One could argue that this problem was not in evidence until the microbial spoilage was introduced into the cellars by corks. Even if this were not a specious argument, it would still be pointing to the cork problem. Having seen firsthand, and over many years, the production of really excellent wines in the dirtiest of buildings and cellars-- old moldy, mildewy, dingy wooden buildings, I tend to discount arguments that would point to cellar environment as being a main source of TCA contamination. A statistically meaningful source, certainly, but not in any way the main source, industrywide.

Craig Winchell GAN EDEN Wines

Salut/Hi Craig Winchell/GAN EDEN Wines,

le/on Wed, 11 Feb 2004 16:59:46 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Yup, that logic makes very good sense to me.

You know - I rather feel for wine makers in this. For years, they sterilised wood using SO2, and all was fine. Then a very few people claimed (I am not for moment doubting their sincerity) that they wewre allergic to SO2, and this put winemakers under pressure to reduce SO2 levels (IMO mainly for marketing reasons), this meant using alternative sterilising methods - such as chlorine based disinfectants. And whoops - TCA.

Yup I've little doubt this is true. When I first started writing here, I said (and I stand by) that I'd never knowingly had a corked bottle. That was only about 5 years ago - on bottles mainly bought pre-1986. In the last couple of years I've had several bottles where I've recognised TCA. At first I had thought it was because I was extraordinarily insensitive to it. But in some more recent cases, _I_ was the one who noticed the contamination first, confirmed by others. I am led to the conclusion therefore, that I'd not met it beforehand.

Yup, (thinking of Tokaj cellars and many in Burgundy too!) Cleanliness may be next to godliness, as the old saw goes, but it sure doesn't seem to be an essential in the eyes of many winemakers.

Salut/Hi Peter,

le/on 11 Feb 2004 06:45:04 -0800, tu disais/you said:-

Yes, that is a powerfully held belief. But I don't _think_ I'm falling into that error.

Not really. Christie's wine auctions (who have probably more experience with old to very old red bordeaux, than anyone) reckon that top of shoulder is normal for a >15 yo wine, and not cause for any concern. Where I think we part company, is over your use of the expression "oxidised" with pejorative meaning and in contra-distinction to "aged". I believe that oxidation is (or can be) a normal part of the aging process.

Not really. For Christie's, a low shoulder fill is relatively normal for a

60 yo wine, but nevertheless implies a wine that oughtn't to be stored very much longer.

I'm not sure. I think it's probably a normal and inevitable process.

A good question. Certainly I've drunk some 19th century wines, which were still alive, having been under cork, but I've no idea what the fill level was at the time of opening.

snip most of Craig's message.

excellent wines in the dirtiest of buildings and

Craig

Is there any reason to believe that dirty, moldy cellars, in the absence of chlorine (or cleaning solutions based on chlorine) should be subject to TCA contamination?

I confess to be quite ignorant on matters of chemistry, but I wonder if less cleaning is not, in some ways, better. (realizing there are other contaminants that can make wines go bad.)

Tom Schellberg

I can only point out that TCA is present in "natural" corks (treated solely with sulfite washes) and corks sanitized by peroxide, in addition to corks sanitized by chlorine substances. I'm not convinced that it's simply a matter of the presence of macro-concentrations of chlorine. Yes, chlorine in higher concentrations may cause a very significant statistical increase in TCA, but why didn't the problem go away whith natural and sulfite treated corks? There is plenty of chlorine present in the natural environment (it's one of the most common elements).

Nope, you just get more types of wine-active bugs growing, some of which can render a wine undrinkable, instead of simply less palatable. Cleaning is definitely better, all other things being equal.

Craig Winchell GAN EDEN Wines

No, not that I'm aware of. Those types of cellars tend to incubate _other_ types of spoilage.

Possibly because it was also present in the winery, but the cork became the scapegoat?

Well of _course_! Sea water has a very high concentration of chlorine, e.g. That's not the oxidation state of chlorine we're referring to however.

It's not all that clear to me how TCA forms in corks, barrels or cellar drains - but I believe that it does. It _is_ clear that it doesn't take very much of it (parts per _trillion_?) to ruin a bottle of wine, and it seems to have a non-contact form of transmission.

Tom S

Any wood in the winery treated with polychlorophenols? It's used as a wood preservative and has been linked to TCA in wine, even without direct contact with the wine.

It's my understanding that two things are required for TCA formation, Chlorine and certain types of microbes. Wood is not a requirement but can harbor the microbes. When the wood is cleaned/sanitized with chlorine bleach, it's a deadly combination (for the wine).

I'm not totally convinced that the incidence of TCA taint has risen significantly. Could it be that the reporting of TCA taint by the media has increased? And because the issue sees a lot more press, more and more people can identify the taint, when before they just said "funky smell". Back in the '80s I definitely had bottles that had the typical TCA smell and taste, I just didn't know what it was from. Now I do, thanks to the media.

I believe, at one point, there was also a significant increase in the use of chlorine based cleaning/sanitizing products in wineries. Hopefully, this trend has reversed as attention is drawn to the problems it can cause.

I certainly find old bottles with taint, but probably not enough sampling to come to any meaningful statistics concerning, say, pre

1990 and post 1990 wines. Any one have a large stock of old wines to donate in the cause of scientific research?

One more thing, why do you say the cork introduced the microbes into the wineries? My understanding is the microbes are found in more than just cork trees and that they are rather common.

Andy

Nope. If present only in the cellar, one would expect homogeneity throughout any given tank of wine prior to bottling, assuming it's been guthed. In my experience, that clearly has not been the case. Even using natural corks or peroxide corks, it varies greatly from bottle to bottle, even with "stainless steel" wines. At least in my case, and I would assume the vast majority of cases, the TCA problem is due to the corks.

That's true. However, there are plenty of oxidizing agents and reducing agents around the environment, and oxidative states in various things are changing all the time-luckily, not in large amounts.

There's no question that it does form, and there's no question that small amounts are all it takes. As I say, there's a history of use of wine cellars, there's a history of use of corks, and the increase in the problem over the past few years is well documented, indicating the something changed over the last few years to cause the problem. The recent health problems in the cork oak population seems to parallel the increase in the TCA problem in recent years. With the wealth of evidence, it doesn't take a rocket scientist, or even an enologist, to understand what's happening. It's mainly the corks, and solving that problem will, by and large, solve the TCA problem in wine.

Craig Winchell GAN EDEN Wines

experiencing

Sure, but was it always around 10% funky corks? I agree, there were always funky bottles, and some of them were definitely TCA. However, I'm convinced the problem has gotten worse in recent years, based upon my history of winemaking since 1982, as well as my wine tasting experience dating from the early '70s. I can tell you that in the '70s, I did occasionally get a funky bottle, especially from Italy, and occasionally it was what we now know as TCA, but I experienced nowhere near the number of bad bottles I've experienced since the mid '80s.

I didn't say that. I said that someone might say that to account for the fact that the TCA phenomenon is recent, but that it was an invalid argument.

Craig Winchell GAN EDEN Wines