I got into an argument (at a Passover Seder, where else!) about whether a wine can be slightly or partially corked. One side of the argument is that it either is or is not and that there is no suck thing as levels of corkiness. The other side is that TCA is a chemical and it’s all about concentration, so at certain low levels there might be a slight although not completely fatal contamination. Any thoughts?
I don’t know if I’d put it as “slightly corked”. Maybe lean more towards mildly or strongly corked as a better descriptor. But yes it certainly is. It’s also important to remember that each person has a unique tolerance to TCA so while you may be drinking the same wine you may be tasting it differently.
I think there are degrees of Tca taint.
Mild. Medium. Heavy. Wtf. Etc
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Once I notice TCA, whether strongly or barely detectable, I cannot not pay attention to it. So the wine is done for me. I’ve also had cases where I did not notice the TCA itself but a wine was showing sullenly and another taster said they detected TCA. So it seems to have it’s effects whether low level or not.
I have seen cases where apparently normally educated palated individuals have continued to enjoy a wine that they knew had a low level of TCA.
In my experience, there are “levels” of corked. Some are utterly undrinkable and other examples seem to give a faint hint of “corkiness” that also tends to mute the other flavors you expect. In the first case, the wine goes down the sink. In the second, you have a bottle of wine that doesn’t deliver much pleasure and frustrates you over an hour or so expecting it to “wake up.”
-af
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Vote for yes.
Interesting question - and I think it has a lot to do with ‘perception’. For instance, if you are not that sensitive to TCA, a ‘lightly corked’ wine may not appear ‘corked’ at all to you, but may to others.
It’s really a challenging issue to me - and one that continues to frustrate so many folks. As Cris notes, there are many that continue to enjoy ‘lightly corked’ wines while others would not touch it.
Cheers
Yes and no. There are degrees of corkiness, but for me I can’t drink a wine that smells, tastes corked. So while there are different levels of corked, the decision for me is binary
My wife was a little bit pregnant once.
Yes, Jay, there are degrees. You can measure TCA, and people have detection thresholds, like any other smell or taste.
But corkiness is not just a matter of how much TCA you can smell or taste. TCA also interacts with other aroma and flavor compounds and can interfere or even block our perception of them.
That explains why sometimes a wine that does not have the characteristic TCA smell of wet cardboard/mushroom can seem strangely muted (it may have just enough TCA to block other flavors), or why a wine with some TCA aroma can have lots of flavor (the flavors aren’t blocked by TCA). It all depends not only on the amount of TCA but what kind of wine it is and whether its flavors and smells are susceptible to being interfered with by TCA.
Leave it exposed to air for long enough, and it’ll be completely corked.
Personally, I don’t find TCA repellent, so if the wine isn’t totally dominated by it and has other flavors, I may still be able to drink it. Lots of people who aren’t attuned to look for TCA don’t have a problem with corked wines, so it’s plainly not universally repugnant.
But I completely understand your reaction. I’m that way with the mousiness you get at the back of the palate with a lot of low sulfur wines. Other people aren’t bothered by that or can’t taste it at all.
It will become stronger (presumably as the TCA evaporates out of the wine), but I find there are still degrees of corkiness even when wines have been exposed to air.
(This is quite helpful when returning a bottle. It’s almost always more spoiled by the time you bring it back to the store.)
(This is quite helpful when returning a bottle. It’s almost always more spoiled by the time you bring it back to the store.)
Yep. And the funny thing is, sometimes the guy in the store just doesn’t notice it. I took one back last week. He asked what was wrong. I said it was corked. He said it was supposed to be - you could tell the screw-capped wines by the ridges.
So I explained that the cork was bad. He asked how I could tell. I said I smelled and tasted the wine. “Oh,” he said. “You can tell if a cork is bad by the way the wine tastes?”
I explained it to him and told him to pour some out into a dixie cup. He did and couldn’t see what I was pointing out, but the entire area smelled like corked wine. He gave me an exchange bottle anyway.
But to answer Jay’s question - I think the answer is both yes and no.
In an absolute sense, the wine is corked or is isn’t. It’s like you’re dead or you’re alive. But then there are degrees of living - on life support, in extreme pain, etc. And I think wine is like that too - you can sometimes tell that a wine is corked the moment the cork comes out of the bottle and the room reeks, or you sometimes have to taste it, smell it, and let it sit for a minute and re-check to see if your assessment was right. Partly due to perception, partly due to other factors, and partly due to the concentration of TCA.
No wonder Jay got into the argument at a seder!
There are definitely levels of cork taint. I’ve seen some situations where the typical corked smells/flavors weren’t there, but the wine just tasted “dead”. No flavor at all. That’s a situation of very light cork taint, just enough to steal the wine’s characteristics but not enough to really stink up the wine.
given the fact that it’s naturally occurring that corks aren’t the sole source of TCA and there is a fairly consistent perceptible range for humans, i’m curious what the counter-argument (that it is binary) could possibly be?
I don’t seem to detect taint as much as my wife, but I have a friend that seems especially sensitive to it.
You actually found a woman who was willing to marry you? Hard to believe. 
While there are degrees of contamination, corked is corked. You are not getting the same expression in the wine that you would in a clean bottle and that, to me, is the line in the sand. Sure, it might not be awful and many folks at the table may still enjoy the wine–which is not always the case with a truly awfully corked bottle–but it’s not the same wine in a clean bottle.
This was a major story once in Laube’s history. He called a Chat. Montelena corked at a tasting and not reviewable. Laube claimed to have extreme sensitivity to TCA. No one else at the event could pick up the taint. I believe it was <50 Ppb.
The story is an interesting read in Laube’s history with all reactions it got from the different parties.