I’ve never had a bottle of corked champagne. My rate of TCA is extremely low, way less than 1%.
Here’s another random question - what percentage of white wines that you open are corked vs reds?
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Last one was a Krug #169 
I must be pretty unlucky, I’ve never had a corked cheap Champagne, but I’ve had badly corked Krug, Bollinger LGA, Dom, and Cristal.
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I ran into several affected bottle this year, most recently a bottle of Aubry that you could smell across the room on pop. As I read this thread, I am thinking a few things…
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my rate of corked champagnes is probably lower than my rate for still wines (but only slightly), which I want to chalk up to higher rates of use of agglomerated corks perhaps
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I can’t think of a single instance where I felt a champagne was just mildly corked whereas I’ve had that experience several times, even recently, with still wines. They’ve tended to be very badly corked situations (like yours, @Warren_Taranow) with champagne, and I’m wondering if perhaps CO2 acts in some way to protect the wine from low levels of TCA exposure…no clue if there’s anything truth to that, though.
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Yes, corked Champagne happens … rarely but still too often …
Last Oct. a Mg Krug 1989 …
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It is - typically agglomerated corks tend to carry a somewhat higher probability of TCA as the cork is composed of many parts of cork bark, not just one (unless the cork is treated to remove TCA). However, sparkling wine corks have a disc of very high-quality cork that is the part in contact with the wine, effectively insulating wine from the agglomerated part. This way you can sort of get the best of the two worlds in sparkling wine corks: the agglomerated corks make it possible to make huge corks (at a reduced cost) but the disk at the bottom makes it work more like a regular cork, and it is easier to make sure that just these discs are TCA-free.
I don’t know how this works. All my wines are stored on their side - the cork contact is the same with all my wines. Champagne bottles are stored on their sides in the winery and almost always in the boxes they are transported. There is definitely as much cork contact as with any other style of wine stoppered with a natural cork.
No, it makes it easier. Carbonation aids in volatilizing TCA, which is why many sparkling wines that are corked - boy, do they feel corked! You don’t have to sniff the glass because the offending aroma often just radiates from the glass.
no.
no.
maybe a little but no.
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This is interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever had a corked Champagne or sparkling wine. I drink a lot less than still wine though. I’d say I’m pretty sensitive to TCA too. May be a silly question, but does it still give off that musty smell and flavor?
Yes, very much so.
Very mild cases might be just completely mute and dull, but many corked sparkling wines I’ve had have shown more intense TCA aromatics than still wines - most likely due to how CO2 volatilizes it more effectively.
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When I get a corked bottle, I write the winery about it if it was an expensive bottle. Sometimes they do the right thing and arrange a replacement, most of the times it is just “Sorry”. That’s when I let them know, I will not be purchasing their wines anymore.
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Do you contact like European producers about corked wines? Or the retailer where you got them? A lot of US sellers I’ve worked with have replaced corked bottles.
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Are you referring to retailers when you say US sellers?
I’ve contacted European Producers and US producers as well as retailers. Retailers are generally good at it but a lot of bottles I open that are corked I bought a long time ago and I have no idea who I bought them from if not labeled.
Are you suggesting that the disks of whole cork on the bottom of sparkling wine stoppers are TCA-free?
Had a horribly corked 2008 Laurent Perrier Millésimé about 6 weeks ago. Made me realize how rarely I’ve encountered TCA in bubbly.
Side note: does anyone else seem to get runs of corked bottles? I can go 11 months without any TCA, and then in the 12th month I seem to get the whole year’s worth of cork taint all at once. I recently had 5 or 6 bottles in a row that had some degree of TCA.
Now that I’ve said this, there’s a 1000% chance the next Champagne I open will be corked
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I bought a case of 1990 Dom Perignon from a restaurant (Bastide) when it was closing. Half were corked.
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Thread drift alert
Many years ago three of five wines we opened were corked. The night was saved by a wine i brought with not much hope of being good: a 1980 Ridge Geyserville with a low shoulder fill and signs of leakage. The wine was excellent.
PS I always seem to break wine glasses in threes. I’ve gone a few years without breaking a glass and then boom three in a week.
The math predicts that you should have runs once in while, Patrick.
I estimate that about 4-5% of the still wines I open are corked. For sparkling wines it is 1-2%.
It depends: for wines 1970 to 2000+ it’s more like 10-15% …
after 2005 it’s fortunately less …
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Same for me; percentage of corked wines is decidedly higher for older wines.
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