We bottled our 2014 Syrahs yesterday, during which time we were visited by the cork rep, who passed along some news of a technological update. Apparently, they will soon have online a sorting system whereby every individual cork is run down a line, scanned, and the TCA containing ones discarded. I don’t know the detection technology. I imagine that was the main hurdle, what was preventing them from being able to sort in the past. I hesitate to pass this on - the cork people won’t have enough throughput with this system if they get a whole lot of new demand. But I’m so delighted, so overjoyed, if it is true that finally the manufacturer can deliver a taint-free product that I can’t restrain myself from sharing the news. I do indeed think natural cork is the superior enclosure, especially for wine meant to age, and we have been able to source some beautiful corks, great quality. But with an industry-typical taint rate, which I find unacceptably high. It is hard to know, really, what our taint rate is, but it definitely happens, and I’m shooting for zero occurrences. Things looking up?
Thanks for sharing the good news, Nick!!
Wouldn’t happen to be these guys would it? Sounds like it has taken them a couple years to get the large scale system down. I know we are getting some of the corks this year for our reserve wines.
That’s not our cork supplier. Guess there is more than one firm onto this. Heading toward the new industry standard?
Do they have a team of dedicated cork soakers?
Funny guy
It’s coming, one way or another. I think most of the big cork companies (mine included) are working on a machine to do automated detection of TCA. We are very close to releasing these corks commercially. It will be interesting to see how different companies address throughput and limit of detection. It’s not an easy feat both to detect the TCA at such low levels and do it reliably and quickly.
Or, they could skip the costly scanner detecting TCA corks and use screw caps ![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
I’ll believe it when I see it. Running billions of corks through a machine that can analyze down to 1 ppt sounds like a stretch.
RMK-
I really do think cork is a superior closure, better than screw cap - didn’t I say that?
Oliver-
It seems likely to have come around sooner or later. You figure they have been sampling and scanning some representative sample of their cork production internally just to see how various treatments are/are not working. Why not scale up the scanning? Maybe they’ll also eventually identify sources of contamination upstream?
As a percentage of my total bottle cost, really nice corks are still pretty cheap. I think the market will bear raising cork prices a little, which would pay for the new capacity.
Good news Nick and thanks for taking the time to post, please drop by more often…still smile thinking of the wines and view from the house patio the day we visited the vineyard…a great day!
The pleasure was mine, come back anytime
I know you’ll not be swayed away from cork but even if they eliminate TCA from corks (which I doubt - very very low level TCA can still suck the life out of a carefully cellared bottle), the issue of variable permeability will remain. Aussie did suffer from a lot of poor quality corks during the 90’s, so this may be an extreme example, but the natural variability is still an unfortunate quality IMHO.
http://blog.huonhooke.com/2012/09/25/the-lottery-that-is-cork/
I know MA Silva is doing this but there are others jumping on and promising to replace/pay for bad bottles. They are setting up new techniques for inspection lines in Europe. The prices looked great and seemed to be a no-brainer to me. This is going to get very interesting with the competition heating up.
This sounds great. Sorry, folks, but I hate screw caps. I love pulling corks.
Nick - are they marketing these to you in a different way from their standard cork process - as in, what is the cost difference? Are they passing this along? Can you share costs?
TimK-
Huh, I thought you were going to link me to something definitive, a study or something. Huon’s six bottles did vary alarmingly. I suspect my customers may have experienced corks with O2 permeability variability, but not to such extremes. I pour library wine at our open house, and old Viognier and Chardonnay bottles don’t vary at all over the course of a dozen or more bottles, unlike Huon’s six Semillon bottles. We do get very high quality corks, spend the time to grade the lots and choose the best lot. There must be some some study that Huon could have footnoted?
Merrill-
too new, too little info, haven’t heard costs. PM me?
I completely agree with this. TCA is talked about a lot, and they’ve done well to get the percentage down to 2% or so*, but there is no solution to the oxygen transmission variability.
*- a level that is still absurd, of course.
Gee, another product using an iXxxxx name. iM siCk of seeiNg these companiEs usurpiNg another brand’s success.
Hooke wrote this: “I opened a six-pack of McWilliams Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon 1997, which had been in its unopened box in my cellar since it was released. The accompanying picture shows the variation in colour, which reflects the varied speed of aging, due to cork variation. I chose the fourth bottle from the left to serve to special overseas guests. I could see from the colour that it was likely to be the best. It was superb. But I could also tell from the colours that one of the bottles is completely oxidised, and two or three others are probably going to be tired and prematurely old.
This is the problem with cork. Delicate white wines such as Hunter Valley semillon are most vulnerable. Full-bodied reds, less so – and the advanced development is not nearly as detrimental to the taste.”
It’s all old news down here (and Hooke’s column is from 2012). McWilliams used to routinely release the Elizabeth semillon at 5 years old, and they used to run the entire production through a “light-box”, bottle-by-bottle, as a means to identify - and discard - between a quarter and a third of the vintage due to oxidation problems, in an attempt to get the product to consumers in a fit state.
You may well argue that they should/could have bought better corks; maybe.
But it’s no wonder that the local wine industry here pretty much switched over en masse to screwcaps.
Would you open a sealed case of your lightest-bodied whites at five years old an expect all 12 bottles to taste the same? You should…
cheers,
Graeme