Wine Enthusiast Magazine
SubscribeA comment on my last post, about how sommeliers may be more sympathetic to people sending bottles back, points out how complex the issue of flawed bottles is, and how worked up over it people are. Poster Shane Colella doesn’t hesitate to send back any bottle that is less than perfect, the same way one rejects a dish that’s not cooked perfectly.
Right on–the consumer has to stand up for his rights.
Shane concludes by saying, “I just can’t wait until the big boys in the wine world fully migrate to screwtops so we can all just get on with drinking the good stuff instead of running back to the cellar for another questionable bottle.”
I have a couple of problems with that.
For one, screwtops themselves can still be problematic in some cases. For another, screwtop and other non-cork closures don’t always solve the problem, because the problem often times doesn’t lie in the cork.
Funky, moldy aromas can get into wine other ways, too. This issue is a big one in the wine industry, and it’s ongoing. Not only does the corky substance, trichloroanisole, get into corks, it also gets into whole wineries. Numerous Bordeaux chateaux had to rip up their cellars to get rid of infected architectural wood that was infecting their wines, beginning in the early 1990s, as I recall. The stuff can float through the air, land on anything made with cellulose (paper, wood, natural rubber, corks) and spread. So whole wineries become like giant culturing trays for it.
In this century, several California wineries had such bad infections that they had to totally renovate their cellars, sometimes moving to entirely new steel and concrete buildings to crush and age their wines, eliminating the TCA that way because it’s almost impossible to scrub out.
So, saying a wine is corked or corky is inaccurate much of the time. More accurate: Waiter, this wine is plywooded, I want another bottle. Or, waiter, this wines is cardboard-boxy.
TCA smells the same from various sources. But there’s also TBA, which is practically the same to your nose, and a host of other bugs that can pollute a bottle of wine.
I wholeheartedly agree that the increased use of screwcaps is a good thing. But, like many things in the wine world, it’s not a simple issue. And the cork is not always the culprit.
Filed under: Closures, Restaurants and Food
5 Comments
August 16th, 2007 at 1:52:49 PM
Jim,
Thanks for clearing this issue up for consumers.
I was shocked when I saw a bottling line in a Napa winery that wasn’t rinsing their bottles before filling. All it takes is a single small speck of cardboard dust in the bottle to give the wine that wet cardboard smell. But of course the winemaker will always blame the cork.
I’ve also heard (and seen a few)wineries that very publicly moved to screwcaps and synthetics a few years ago have very quietly moved back to corks.
August 19th, 2007 at 2:04:38 PM
The TCA problem is not a simple issue and as you point out it may not be a cork problem alone but rather a winery problem. For an interesting take on the whole cork versus screwcap issue check out this article in South African Wine News.The below link will take you to the article.
http://www.wine.co.za/news/news.aspx?NEWSID=10591&Source=Newsfeed
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:01:46 PM
Hi Jim,
Enjoying your blog. Three quick points. First, TCA power. The late wine writer Jerry Mead sold small vials of TCA to educate people about it. I put a “sealed” vial in my desk drawer and the next day all my business cards smelled like a century-old book.
Most recent TCA experiences (besides corked wines). Pre-packaged (washed in chlorinated water, no doubt) baby carrots (cellulose) from the supermarket. Old photos stored, then shipped by a friend in a badly “corked” manila file folder.
Best send-back-the-corked-bottle advice: Don’t! Keep the bottle, or at least a glass of the corky/corked wine, so you can demonstrate the difference side-by-side when the sommelier brings a good bottle. His nose should vindicate you.
August 22nd, 2007 at 7:31:18 PM
Corkiness is easy to detect for me. Brett is not so easy. I know the barnyard smell and taste is synonomous with Brett but I do enjoy a Bretty wine from time to time.
Corked, that wet newspaper in the basement taste and smell, is so easy for me to pick out. I get a little twinge leading to a headache if even the slightest corkiness is going on….I always pass.
My mother-in-law refuses to believe I can call a corked wine. :-)
Great Blog
August 23rd, 2007 at 11:13:14 AM
we did a big article, and have another one coming on cork. one thing that fails to be mentioned is the problem screw caps are having with reduction. rates as high as those of wine tainted with TCA(from cork or just uncleanliness) are being attributed to reductitve notes in wines from screw caps. No solution is 100%. Think of it this way. Wine is a perishable item, like apples. If you buy a bag of apples a few might be bruised, some even so bad they are unedible(well maybe for apple pie! ;) ) But really no matter the closure their will always be bad bottles.
Cheers, and thanks for the nice debate!