Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

We're on a roll unfortunately. That last three out of six bottles opened all corked. After the recent thread about 2005 Haut Bergey I thought I'd take one to the club for mother's day dinner and wow badly corked. Nothing more frustrating and disappointing than cork taint. If it happens at home when you open a bottle the there's always more in the cellar but you take one out to dinner then you are stuck. Times like these make me want to bring on the screw cap closers. There has to be a better solution. I know the 50% rate is high but 10% i far to great. There has to be a better solution.

Too bad, Danny. The event of a specific bottle being corked is approximately independent of any other specific bottle being corked. This implies that you will have some bad runs and some good runs. Unfortunately, having a recent bad run does not increase the probability that you will soon have a good run.

I wish that all wine makers would use screw caps for all wines. This might happen if the producer had to replace every corked bottle no matter when it was opened.

People talk about decanting and then putting Saran wrap in the wine. Something in that chemical seems to reduce the impact of the taint, over a few hours. I have yet to try it. I'm not very TCA sensitive, but I'm sure I've drunk many a bottle which seemed underfruited and flat, that was affected.

I too wish that modern closures were more popular. That pleasing 'pop' sound as the vacuum is broken isn't worth it compared to expensive -- in time and money -- wines being ruined.

The Saran wrap trick works to some extent, Arv, but my experience is that the wine does not completely recover. I think It is worth using if you can't stand to lose a bottle.

I had 3 bottles in row with TCA last fall. Makes you wonder when that happens.

stefan wrote:The Saran wrap trick works to some extent, Arv, but my experience is that the wine does not completely recover. I think It is worth using if you can't stand to lose a bottle.

My experience as well. Can make the wine drinkable but not normal. Apparently some films work better than others. In my trials, I bunched it up and sloshed it around in a glass for a few minutes with the affected wine.

Of course there is already a solution: screw caps can eliminate cork as a source of TCA and closure failure, and they have been shown to allow reliably repeatable oxygen transmission dialed in to whatever level is desired for aging. But tradition and fear of the marketing gods prevents their widespread adoption in Europe. They are the norm in NZ and Australia, even for some age worthy wines.

Not only does the cling wrap suck out most of the corkiness it also sucks what residual life is in the wine. Fruit goes with the mildly corked wine along with the body. I tried saran in a glass of uncorked wine and its amazing. Tannins tamed,fruit muted and the wine no way resembles what was in the glass. Yes cork dissipates but the life that's left is also sucked out!!

I love Stefan's idea of 100% money back guarantee on corked wines. That would get them thinking but you and I know that's never going to happen. Fortunately for us the LCBO has this policy built in to their sale policy so it eases the inflated heavily taxed prices somewhat.

I hate corked wine.
BUT I hate cooked wine more.