new results from Australia on closures

Forgive me for going against the grain but in this day and age of drug companies funding medical research, who funds this research? And what does it all mean to me when there is no comparable screw cap equipment out there for the amateur to use? Just using a screw bottle with a screw on cap will not give you these results. You need their equipment that pinches on the cap.

Ray

I don't know who funds this, and I'm not pushing anything, just thought the info was interesting. As for no screwcap equipment available to us, I'm with you, but I'd think that our best chance to get something like that in the near future is if screwcaps get established in the mainstream commercial winemaking.

Pp

I am not attacking you PP. There are just so many studies floating around these days that say new things are so much better than old things and when you look into them they are funded by the new thing. Not saying these are but I am becoming very skeptical. Would like to know who funds these studies. The general public has really had the wool pulled over their eyes in recent years.

Ray

Corked wine taint is more of a concern for the big companies than it is for amateur winemaker. You can really reduce the chances of wine taint by spending the money for closed pore solid cork versus going with the cheaper ones made of cork particles glued together. The taint is a combination of microbe on the cork bark and bleach sterlizing procedures. Hydroxide treatment doesn't have the problem. If you get infected cork the small scale amateur my lose a few bottles and be upset while the full scale winery my loose an entire 50,000 case run.

Recently? The tobacco companies funded the early smoking health research.

First paragraph on the first page lists the wineries involved and no surprises it's the wineries that are the most vocal about tainted cork.

They also thank their sponsors later on;

"The ACF wishes to thank its sponsors: Grosset Wines, the Wine Press Club of NSW, Auscap and ACI."

Auscap and ACI both provide ROTE closures.

Andy

Of course that is "assuming" that the cork is the blame and not chlorine products used for such things as cleaning in the wine cellar.

Not that I've seen, but (and a big but) there have been numerous reports of "cork taint" being traced back to issues other than cork. Chlorine use in the winery appears to be the biggest offender, followed by certain wood preservatives being used when the winery was built/remodeled.

Andy

Regardless, it still means you had a microbe in the cork and chlorine contact with the cork.

No, that's not right. It's entirely possible to have TCA contamination in the cellar, entirely separate from TCA in/on corks. If I'm remembering right, the two big cases in California were Hanzell, and one of the Gallo wineries.

There were reports of entire lots of wine contaminated with TCA. It's on of the reasons many wineries (including mine) have moved entirely away from chlorine-based sanitizing.

That said, if this most recent study is one of a continuiing series of studies by the AWRI, headed by Peter Godden, one would need to do more to refute them than make comments about funding studies. I read the first couple of installments in the series, and it looked like really nicely done research. It also pointed out some of the problems with screw caps as well, though, so these may not be the same studies.

The web link didn't work for me. Has it worked for other folks?

Dave

**************************************************************************** Dave Breeden snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

Yes it does work for me. Might try again.

Ray

Thanks, Ray!

As soon as I posted, I tried again and it worked.

Dave

**************************************************************************** Dave Breeden snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

David, This looks like that study.

Your point on TCA is well taken. Both my brother and I use the same corks and he had a very bad experience with taint a few years back, mine did not seem to have the same problem. He often uses a 'bleach' rinse on bottles where I only use bleach if I see mold in a bottle and don't feel like pitching the bottle. He is meticulous about cleanliness, much more so than I. The bottles would have been well rinsed. His corks and mine are always from the same lot; if anything, mine are older. He soaked his natural cork, I never do. I throw them in a funnel and spritz them with 1% sulfite solution, that's it. We never use cheap corks, they are either twin top agglomerated or higher grade 1 3/4" naturals. I'm trying Altec this year.

As to the study, does anyone know what synthetics were tested? From the timing I would assume one was Supremecorq.

All I want is a decent cork I can trust for 10 years, period. The oldest wine I have is 9 years old and we are down to one or 2, I will never keep them longer than that. My fruit is not superior. Most of our wines are consumed between 2 and 5 years. I'm no longer confident synthetics will get me more than a few years but it's too early to say.

I do not have a vacuum corker so am leary about the oxygen I am pumping in with synthetics, I tend to sulfite on the high side of 0.8 molecular with them.

Joe

Joe

David C Breeden wrote:

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snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

Hi Joe,

I finally was able to look at the study, and it's not in fact part of Godden's research (though it does cite it as a source).

FWIW, I'd stay well away from Altecs. If I' m remembering correctly, that was the one kind of cork that Godden's original research found to be uniformly associated with cork taint. For me, Altecs provide the same opportunity for evil that ground meat does with E coli: if you have meat with E. Coli on its surface, and you grind it up with a bunch of other meat, you not only spread the E coli around, you also hide it inside the meat where you can't as easily heat it to the right temperature. Similarly, if you have *A* cork with a microbiological problem and you grind it up with 1000 other corks, you now have 1000 corks with a microbiological problem.

Where's the upside?

We've found corks from Cork Supply USA to be way better for TCA-related problems than anything else we've used. I'm not sure how available they'd be to home winemakers, though.

Dave

**************************************************************************** Dave Breeden snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

And BV and Ch. Montelena. Both put out some very high quality wines.

Andy

Thanks David. I'll check and see if we have bought off of Cork Supply. I'm pretty sure the minimum there is 5000 and 1000 is enough for us. I know we used to get corks from someone in California but can't recall who it was, all I rember is black writing on the bag.

Thanks for the info on Altec, it makes sense.Joe