Cork Taint Rates?!?!?

WINE TALK
41

Thanks for the clarification, Cameron.

I thought there was pretty good long-term research from Australia now, or where those different closures from what’s being marketed now?

42

Cameron -
Out of curiosity, how much track record do you want to see before you feel you have enough information to form an informed opinion?

On another note, some of the Australian critics were very quick to share that article from Lisa Perrotti-Brown on social media.

43

You’re right that there’s a lot of track record on the tin lined and saranex lined screw caps, and they’re great closures for their otr level. There’s a sizable gap between the tin & saranex in their oxygen transmission rates (otr). Because of this, ‘they’ came out with new screw caps with various/different otr levels…a good development. I’m assuming that Cameron is referring to these new screw caps. I agree with him, simply because being extremely wary of new developments in closures has been/is an excellent way to stay in business. And with Diam (what I use), screw caps aren’t the only game in town (Diam has been in house and field tested, by Fevre and others, since 2002…so they are, imo, in the safe zone).

There’s been a lot of change in how traditional cork mfrs process their corks over the ~10 years. Because of this, it’d be more meaningful to track corked % by mfr or processing technology. Not that this is practical to do unfortunately…but some cork mfrs are definitely behind the times. My assumption is that will be corrected, one way or another, in a relatively short amt of time.

44

Cameron,

What does this last part mean? How is it implausible?[/quote]

Hi Oliver - sorry, what I , meant to say is that the data on the various oxygen transfer liners that are now being built into recent screw-cap offerings is simply too new to be “plausibly” presented to winemakers as having much track record.[/quote]

Thanks for the clarification, Cameron.

I thought there was pretty good long-term research from Australia now, or where those different closures from what’s being marketed now?[/quote]

There’s is plenty of research, but little consensus. Can you clarify your question? No sure I understand…?

45

From articles by Jamie Goode, I thought that Australian researchers had done long-term studies on screwcap closed wines and that the wines had held up very well.

46

Hi Paul - yeah, sorry, I should have been clear - the research I was thinking about was for the recently introduced screw-caps that have been recently offered in US that have variable OTR. Those were only introduced a few years back so the jury is still out…

Again, I use bottle wine under screw-cap, Nomacork and DIAM depending on the varietal and have no skin in the game - all I care about is the end-user experience.

47

hehheh, depends on who you talk to…performing well and performing better are subjective.

again, I have no skin in the game other than to deliver the best product possible to my customers - the price differential between screw-cap, DIAM and Nomacork are negligible to my programs so I use the closure I think best for the particular project. Typically, I use screw-caps on SB and Riesling, DIAM on Chards and some reds, and Nomacork on most of our high-ends Cabs. I match OTR’s on the DIAM and Noma to the wines intended usage…is it near term or longer term consumption - where is the “honey hole”’ for each wine? FWIW, I’ve tested numerous varietals wines under each of these closures over the years and our results have been paneled many times with consistent results that parallel the closure decisions I’ve outlined above.

48

Yeah, really.

Curious as to what you see as markedly better now than your ~10%+ rate a decade ago?

Anyway, like I said, not what I am, & have been seeing.

I taste often enough with a handful of other winemakers, & am usually 1st to detect TCA affected wines, so threshold is not an issue why I see a lower rate than some here.

I agree with seeing a recent lessening (for me recent is +/- the last decade). Not having quantified it, I don’t necessarily see it as being markedly better.
Knowing a little of the background of the cork industry before/after screw-cap/artificial-cork, I am mildly surprised I haven’t seen bigger improvement, but that’s what I’ve seen.

IIRC it was the early/mid '00’s when many cork companies started improving their game from the bottom up with better/more testing at production level, better sanitation/storage conditions at the farm/storage/pre-production level, & more recently,
gas-chromatography on production/packaging lines.

Adams linked WS cork-taint numbers from above are for Cali natural cork-finished wines. They flagged all wines for suspicion of some kind of flaw, usually it’s TCA (from WS link; italics/bold mine).
I’m assuming that some % of the flaws in these flagged wines that are usually TCA are not actually cork-taint, which would skew that number down at least slightly, if not necessarily significantly.

49

I want to thank those of you with boots on the ground and noses to the research for giving us, who as Cameron put it don’t have skin in the game, some fascinating insight into what you are so passionately fighting with. We may be disappointed by bad bottles we get along the way but our reputations, businesses, and livelihood don’t ride on these kinds of choices. Again Thank You for bringing an insides insight and knowledge to this discussion!

50

Actually, you did yourself.

Then you said you wanted several pieces of information, a couple of which are not even relevant. You think she might have had 63+ corked wines from 2 wineries, or that she wouldn’t have mentioned if a huge percentage of the corked bottles were from a very small number of producers? I am sure she would have. Plus, I take this as an issue with cork, not an issue with Sonoma. Has she said it was the latter, or is that just you?

51

Could we keep this about Cork Taint and not about “cork” size grouphug

52

Doug,
[head-bang.gif] You are ITB, from your signature line. So I’d assume you have at least some wine experience of some type and I assume you’ve been to trade tastings. You’ve got some seriously experienced people that have chimed in here (many thanks to them) and you’ll notice a common theme among them…that is a crazy high percentage she’s claiming. I think Jaime Goode nailed it when he said the IWC opens between 15-25,000 bottles a year and their average is under 2%. I’m sure their data points are far more accurate overall, given how much more they taste. Same goes for Wine Spectator and other producers who’ve so graciously chimed in here. Unless, there is something going in Sonoma that isn’t everywhere else. IF that’s the case LPB should just come out and say it instead of beating around the bush. She could have easily written that article without naming Sonoma specifically and, whether intended or not, completely slam a region for a crazy high TCA rate. But again, let me reiterate. LPB has given no breakdown as to what she tasted and where the wines came from, what they were sealed with (type of cork), what vintages, if there was significant taint issues with certain wineries, or any other data points.

Wine reviewers tasting in a given region usually taste a wide number of bottles, new and old, from producers as that may be the one time a year, or longer, they can try to get a major publication to (hopefully) rate their wines and (hopefully) give them good scores. As much as we all think wine reviewers only drink the expensive high end stuff, they also drink a ton of lower priced wines. It’s also very possible she was tasting up to 12 bottles (or more) from the same winery. Many smaller wineries use the same corks for all their wines, it’s cheaper and easier. If a producer gets a bad-lot of corks that can effect a huge number of bottles across their entire range that used those corks. And if there were backups also sent (usually there are) and those are corked as well, you can see how the numbers can add up VERY fast.

As was pointed out here by those far more experienced than any of us, LPB needs to give more accurate and specific data to back her claim.

Regardless, LPB put out an article that made a region, as a whole, look bad to everyone reading it. That’s wrong and IMO totally irresponsible for a reviewer of her caliber. I hope that sheds some light on things you may not have thought of. Now back to the enlightening information being given by some very experienced producers.

53

All of that assumes that reported rates are absolute rates, which is obviously not the case. The difference in rates is more likely a difference in detection thresholds rather than anything else. Again, we’re talking about one taster vs., in all those other cases, groups of tasters that almost certainly include a wide range of detection thresholds. This whole “I didn’t pick it up, so it isn’t there” mentality is too common with wine, and almost never makes sense. Your assumptions are your own and not necessarily implied by the article. If you took one of the most TCA sensitive people in the world and had them come up with some statistics, they’d undoubtedly be far higher than anything reported by almost any group of people. Something like that is probably what happened here (not that she is necessarily one of the most sensitive people in the world, but she could easily be in an upper percentile and come up with numbers far different from the other ones reported).

54

Holly guacamole, you people are missing some very important points here.

  1. LPB is an adult and the managing editor of a major international publication, so if she cares what someone thinks about her on this forum she can easily and assumable affectively defend herself.

  2. LPB’s article did get this thread started, for that I thank her. I don’t think her intent was to single out Sonoma, it just happens to be her new assignment, and her only assignment where allot of corks come into play.

  3. When you open a bottle of wine and it’s corked do you care if it’s one of 2%, 3% or 10%? No you just think “well that sucks”. (We will never know what the true rate of TCA is)

  4. Most importantly, we are getting a great inside look at the battle against TCA from people who know and care deeply about the issue and we don’t want to scar/bore them away from this thread by fighting amounts ourselves. I would like to know more about the options in this fight and their relative pros and cons. [soap.gif]

55

Nunchakus are popular, though one always gets a great deal of respect by bringing some good old-fashioned knuckledusters. Bare-knuckled is considered just a little ‘plebian’ around here.

I remember the good old days of cork vs. screwcap fights here, where if you remembered the fight, you were almost certainly not there. [berserker.gif]

56

I will have to try Nunchakus on my next corked wine. So do you hit the bottle or yourself in the head? [highfive.gif]

57

Find the cork mfrs and hit them! :slight_smile:

58
59

Are we talking current release wines?

I believe 8% is a minimum for burgundy wines from the late 1990s but from 2000 onwards the record is massively better - easily less than 3% for me on current releases - it’s almost a surprise when you have one - this week alone I’ve done about 200 wines and had only 1 corked - but it was a real stinker!

Whilst they won’t thank me for publishing it, probably, the BIVB open thousands of bottles per year at their technical centre - many more than LPB - and they have a cork taint rate below 3% these days - for those wines sealed with ‘straight’ cork :slight_smile:

60

At our blind Sat tasting yesterday, 2 out of 10 were corked.
That’s 6 in the last 3 weeks or so for me.