Boxes that smell corked

[lleichtman]

To me it has that same wet cardboard stench.

I don’t know if it has something to do with what kind of paper material they produce or what, but the stench is nothing like that. The reek that floats around there is quite flatulent / sulfurous to my nose. I’d associate it with heavy reduction / mercaptans in wine, not TCA by a long shot.

I drove through International Falls MN and Fort Frances ON many years ago. Both had paper mills and the mercaptan smell of rotten eggs/rotten cabbage was quite disgusting. It was very distinct from TCA. I was just passing through and maybe the smell was different during different stages of processing.

Anyway, to the OP X I agree with the others who’ve said the TCA won’t get into your bottles but you still don’t want the smell in the cellar. Throw away the boxes and wipe down any stinky bottles, but don’t worry about the wine.

Couldn’t agree more. I used to drive by Camp Paper in Franklin VA and that was where I learned what TCA smells like.

[Otto_Forsberg]

I don’t know if it has something to do with what kind of paper material they produce or what, but the stench is nothing like that. The reek that floats around there is quite flatulent / sulfurous to my nose. I’d associate it with heavy reduction / mercaptans in wine, not TCA by a long shot.

I drove through International Falls MN and Fort Frances ON many years ago. Both had paper mills and the mercaptan smell of rotten eggs/rotten cabbage was quite disgusting. It was very distinct from TCA. I was just passing through and maybe the smell was different during different stages of processing.

Anyway, to the OP X I agree with the others who’ve said the TCA won’t get into your bottles but you still don’t want the smell in the cellar. Throw away the boxes and wipe down any stinky bottles, but don’t worry about the wine.

Couldn’t agree more. I used to drive by Camp Paper in Franklin VA and that was where I learned what TCA smells like.

Agree with what? The comment you quoted just said the paper mill smell is very distinct from TCA.

[Frank_Drew]

I drive by paper/pulp plants every trip to walla walla, and used to smell them in everett and tacoma. If I had to compare to a wine flaw it would be reduced/reducted or brett, not corked.

Corked carrots bug the heck out of me though.

I find baby carrots, by dint of their manufacturing process, to be so reliably contaminated with TCA that “baby carrots” is the first descriptor I use when explaining corked wines to neophytes.

I started buying only organic baby carrots; problem solved (no chlorine wash, or whatever they do to conventional carrots that gives them that odor/flavor.)

[Chris_Seiber]

Could it transfer to cork and then the wine?

I got the most corked wine shipper box of all time once. Your hands and arms reeked of it just from handling the box. The exterior of the bottles were the same, but when I opened them, the wine was fine.

[Dennis_Sullivan]

I had never heard anyone else describe carrots - the babies - as corked. So this was confirmation I am not psycho for several times expostulating aloud that, “These carrots are corked!!”

And I had no idea whatsoever why that might actually be true.

Also, having childhood familiarity with both the Rome, GA paper mill, and another former one in Port St. Joe, Florida, I will also chime in that, while very memorably disgusting, they are not at all like TCA or wet cardboard, but much more sulfurous in character. The owner of the one in Florida shut it down and has made far more profit with their beachfront property sans smelliness than they did milling paper!

[Terry_H_a_r_r_i_s]

Most times I enter the terminal at DIA (Denver) I get a blast of what I associate with as TCA from what I presume is the result of their cleaning solution used in those sliding door entries. I sorta laugh to myself each time.

[Wes_Barton]

Most times I enter the terminal at DIA (Denver) I get a blast of what I associate with as TCA from what I presume is the result of their cleaning solution used in those sliding door entries. I sorta laugh to myself each time.

Sounds more like they’re using a cleaning problem.