Natural cork news

WINE TALK
21

Can the cork sorter get tainted, then tainting all corks?

22

Yes sir, happy to.

23

I bought a few small lots of “guaranteed” taint-free corks from 2 different suppliers over the past 6 months. The results have been promising, so far. I’ve only found 2 TCA-infected bottles during that time, one from each cork supplier.

One was at Pinot Days in NY 2 weeks ago, the other one was today at the winery in SF. In order to get the refund promised by the cork companies, I was supposed to put the cork back in the bottle and send this bottle back to the cork company. The first one was in NY, and I was flying home with carry on luggage, on stand by (to escape Winter Storm Jonas), so I couldn’t check a bag, and thus no wine allowed. Today, we were in the middle of opening 24 bottles of wine, and I didn’t notice the corked bottle until all the corks were removed and there was just a pile of 24 corks on the table. My fault for not instructing the opener to put the corks back in the bottle until I checked each bottle. No refunds yet, but definitely things are looking up for getting rid of TCA.

By the way, one cork supplier charges $0.30 extra per cork to be guaranteed taint-free, the other supplier charges only $0.10 more per cork.

24

I also believe that cork taint is by far not the biggest problem with cork. Large differences in air permeability between corks of the same batch and the random, premature, oxidation that this causes is a far greater problem. It is impossible to deliver a wine sealed with cork that is meant to be aged to the consumer that will consistently show good when consumed.

James Halliday describes this probably better than I can:

@Nick,

I believe that you’ve requested references to some scientific studies regarding the above statements. Multiple studies have been conducted in this field. The following researchers revealed significant differences in air permeability between corks in the same batch of corks:

Hart&Kleinig

min 0.001 cc/day

max 1 cc/day

Difference min/max: 1000x


Paolo Lopez (University of Bordeaux)

min 0.0005 cc/day

max 0.0044 cc/day

Difference min/max: 8.8x


Godden et al (Australian Wine Research Institute)

min 0.0001 cc/day

max 0.1227 cc/day

Difference min/max: 1227x

The figures above indicate the volume of air - measured in cubic centimeters - flowing through the cork (including around the cork between the cork and the bottle) in their lab tests.

These variations are scary enough to almost stop the heart beating of many wine enthusiasts who have their cellars filled with cork sealed wine bottles. Probably even more so if you know that Lopez is/was working for Amorim (the largest cork producer) and I copied the information about all these three tests from the website http://www.realcork.org in 2011 (a website promoting cork!). This makes it hard to believe that the actual real life performance of cork is better than what the mentioned studies reveal. I assume they would have made reference to other studies that showed more positive results for cork if they existed.

When hearing about ‘random premature oxidation’ or the saying ‘there are no good old wines, just good old (individual) bottles of wine’ … think of cork as a likely key contributing factor. Wines more vulnerable to oxidation such as dry white wines with low dosage of sulfites are of course likely to suffer more and more quickly that big red wines or sweet wines. In the end, however, bottle variation will inevitably occur if the closure is variable.

We are living in an era of nanotechnology and still use something as ancient and variable as cork to close expensive bottles of wine. IMO the wine producers still using corks should be a bit ashamed of themselves. Variability between corks (and wines) has been a problem that has been known to exist for a very long time and very little has been done about it (by producers still using cork). Can anyone think of any other industry in which a product very frequently just doesn’t perform at all in line with normal expectations and the producer just assumes that the consumer accepts this? I can’t.

Chris

25

Great idea! Sometimes the easy solution is best.

It seems like the cork industry says every so often that their new technology is so good they’ll virtually eliminate TCA. Then it turns out not to be true. These people have blatantly lied about so many things (dead cats in the cork forests because of screwcaps, anyone?) that my reaction tends to be one of extreme doubt at this point. We’ll see how they actually perform, and I’ll wait for someone other than the industry to give the real numbers because the industry already gives a rate of incidence that is flat out BS.

I find it bizarre that people continue to refer to cork as the “best” closure when there’s absolutely no comparative data to back that up. In a vacuum with no other options? Sure. Considering there’s an existing closure with a FAR lower rate of failure? I’m not on board.

26

As most of you know on this board, I exclusively use screw caps for my wines. I have used corks on joint ventures in the past - Les Deux Comtes with John Cabot, for example - because that is what the others involved wanted to use, and, to me, I wasn’t willing to forego the projects due to this.

I am not anti-cork in any way. I have and continue to enjoy wines produced by others under natural cork, and I have done so for the past three decades.

What I am is a consumer first and foremost, and I made the decision a decade ago not to use corks for the following reasons:

TCA issues - I’ll address this below
Oxidation issues - ditto
Ease of use - yep, believe it or not, there are those who simply do not like to or intimidated by using corkscrews

The TCA issues that existed back in 2006 still exist today. Yep, the presence of TCA certainly has diminished over time, and you can point to lots of ‘studies’ and information, including numbers from Wine Spectator for 2015 that showed TCA-like incidents of wines bottled under cork were at about 2.5%, down from the previous year. But please do not be ‘fooled’ - it still exists and the cork industry continues to be challenged to try to ‘eradicate’ it.

Also remember that our industry as a whole, to me, has truly gone ‘backwards’ over the past decade in educating consumers as to what TCA is and how it presents itself. I deal with folks in my tasting room and at tastings all year round, and I can honestly tell you that even more ‘knowledgeable’ consumers have little to no clue what a ‘corked’ wine is. We may laugh about this on this board, but that’s the truth. And if this is the case, what’s the real percentage of cork incidents out there? Will we really ever know if most consumers, and even many tasting room personnel, are not able to pick these out. Combine this with the fact that many who can pick out corked wines ‘chock this up’ to the way things are and don’t let the companies know (‘well, it’s only a $20 bottle so it’s not worth the hassles’ etc) and I don’t believe we as an industry have a handle on things.

Ed’s story is an interesting one. So the company has ‘guaranteed’ no TCA and yet, in a short period of time and with two small tests, he’s been able to find 2 incidents of TCA. The real ‘challenge’ here to me is that wineries will be ‘taken in’ by this guarantee and therefore feel that the potential problems are minimized, when they in fact may not be. AND this assumes again that consumers CAN pick out TCA and, if so, will let wineries know. And what do the cork companies ‘guarantee’ - the cost of the cork or the cost of the entire bottle of wine and the ‘goodwill’ associated with it?

Oxidation issues are, as others have pointed out, as big if not a bigger potential problem down the line. One of cork’s greatest assets - it’s all natural - also leads to the fact that no two corks are identical in terms of their cell structures, and therefore the amount of oxygen getting in and out will truly be variable. And yes, to me from a ‘consistency’ standpoint, this is a big issue.

I do hope that things continue to improve with corks and that they work to continue to ‘reduce’ these risks. At the same time, I hope we as an industry do a better job educating consumers as to what TCA is and does so that we can get a better handle on things. I’m hopeful that this will help, but just like everything else in life, it won’t on it’s own. Help educate those around you - and suggest to better restaurants and wine shops in your area that they do the same.

And wineries, please continue doing what you’re doing, and I do hope that TCA incidences continue to move lower and lower for both your and your consumers’ sakes.

Cheers.

27

Great post Larry. Just one nit to pick:

The correct word in that phrase would be “chalk”, as in keeping score on a chalkboard, meaning you’re attributing a result to something:

Okay, the Slang Branch of the Grammar Police has had it’s say. We now return you to your normally scheduled programming. [cheers.gif]

28

Dennis,

You just made the most common spelling error on WB (and elsewhere) by assuming the possessive form of it is it’s, but it’s its!

29

I wonder what their definition of ‘taint-free’ is. Many cork suppliers appear to use <2.0 ppt TCA as their definition of this; for most trade tasters in my experience this is far too high. By contrast the Diam cork is now guaranteeing <0.3 ppt.

30

Touché! [cheers.gif]

31

Chris,

What do you think about the issue of reduction in screw cap wines?

How much do you know about how wines being bottled under screw-cap are processed in the winery?

To me, those to issues are far stronger points against screw-caps than any of the complaints one might make against natural corks.

Best,
William.

32

Oliver,

I have been using Amorim corks for quite some time. I credit screw caps with pushing the cork industry to work towards a solution to TCA. To address the issue of O2 variability, I have gone to Twin Tops. Because of the amalgamated cork middle, (Like what is used in sparklers) variability is much less from what I can gather. Modest price too. A renewable, unlike metal tops.

TCA rates are tiny. From what they report, less than .2%. I believe it. My wife and mother each open a bottle of white wine per day. We have over a year without a bad cork a more than once. If I recall, we stand at two tainted bottles in 3.5 years.

As an aside, Vance Rose is my rep at Amorim. He is a solid guy. Last order, his shipping dept. messed up and set my order fedex ground (2 days) rather than GSO. I was already set to bottle. He had a guy drive from Sonoma to Arcata so he could meet the Fedex truck and collect the corks which he personally delivered. Old school customer service. If he says he is getting them to me on a certain day, he does.

33

There’s a heck of a lot of wine under screwcap that doesn’t show reduction, and a heck of a lot of wine under cork that does. It’s not the closure’s fault that some people are still learning how to handle their wines to prepare them for being bottled that way.

34

Hello Andrew,

I don’t doubt there are some nice people working at the big cork companies, but the sceptic in me can’t help thinking that cork is a dying technology, they had better be nice. Look at what’s happened in Australia and NZ.

I have had persistent problems with very low level TCA with Twin Top, around my threshold, so I won’t buy wines bottled with them. You may have had better luck. The ‘less than .2%’ statistic would depend on what they call ‘corked,’ as I observed above. I trust the cork suppliers as far as I can throw them. For that reason I am also skeptical about the reduced oxygen transmission variability you quote…

35

Several screw cap companies now make a range of caps that are engineered to give different oxygen transmission rates, so closure-related reduction shouldn’t be a problem if the right cap is selected. Google ‘stelvin inside’ for one example.

36

I would like to chime in to raise an issue I never hear discussed, not to take a side but because I wonder if there is any real data out there on this.

For background, I am personally very TCA-tolerant. I know what it is, and can detect it at (apparently) higher levels, but rarely does it intrude into my drinking experience. That said, it is a serious flaw, and not only to individual bottles but at times to entire winery operations.

Cork variability is not only responsible for premature oxidation, but is in controlled circumstances (for example, within a case which stays together all the way to the consumer) responsible for almost 100% of “bottle variation”, which is really not a good thing, despite of course the presence of bottles which taste “superior” within this variability.

So to my topic: What about truly long-term storage, 40, 50, or 100 years? I know that sometimes corks fail, and sometimes they are replaced, but in my experience (mostly in the 40-60 year range) original, often obviously inexpensive corks do an admirable job of keeping the wine in the bottle, and keeping it sound, even when they are shown to be soaked and crumbling when removed. I understand that screw caps and other alternative closures seem intuitively to have long effective lives, but what do we really know about this?

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

37

[sarcasm]

I like screw caps because they allow more space for wine! newhere A cork takes almost half a glass!!! [swearing.gif]

[/sarcasm]

[tease.gif] [truce.gif]

38

I am not making blanket claims.

I get that you don’t trust them. It also seems that they are one entity to you and not individual producers with various degrees of QC.

I’d invite you to look into the O2 transfer variability of the Amorim Twin Tops specifically. I will check in with them and see if I can get his numbers and what threshold was used. I do know that the testing is done by an separate lab.

When you seem to be detecting low level TCA are you doing that blind? Have you had the wines that you think are TCA tainted tested? If so, what do the test show in terms of levels?

39

Another issue not directly discussed here, but brought up by a few, is bottle variation.

Not to get too tangential, but yes, inconsistencies in Trans ox rates certainly can lead to this.

So can bottling wines unfiltered. To me, this probably leads to as much if not more ‘bottle variability’ than anything us.

Carry on . . .

40

[popcorn.gif]