Recently, I lamented an encounter with a very corked bottle of Burgundy. Although at the time I referred to it as a Leroy Volnay, it was in fact a 1990 Potinet-Ampeau Volnay-Clos des Chênes. In response, we placed the wine in a device known as the "Dream-Taste," an Xmas present last year. This device is a pitcher with a lid into which you put the corked wine and a plastic "filter" that is shaped like a grape cluster. You let the wine sit for a length of time, during which the TCA taint is supposed to be removed from the wine, leaving you with an uncorked product. We gave the corked Volnay about a two hour treatment and rebottled it. Two nights ago, we tried it:
nose: just the barest hint of cork taint (compared to an overwhelming nose of TCA previously), muted dark fruits and a slight roasted note palate: big, dark fruit, good structure, a slight caramel note, blocky, foursquare
There is no doubt that the Dream-Taste did remove most if not quite all of the cork taint (note: Jean, who is slightly less sensitive to TCA than I didn't get any cork taint in the treated wine). What we cannot tell is whether anything else was removed from the wine. What we got was a very drinkable, if unremarkable, wine without a whole lot of varietal character. Whether that was the result of the treatment or a reflection of year or producer is just not possible to tell. All in all, an interesting experiment, though.
Mark Lipton