I just opened a 2001 Costanti Brunello tonight and it was corked. About a month ago, the same experience with a 1997 Brunello (cannot remember offhand who). This got me thinking: I believe I’ve had more corked Brunellos than probably from anywhere else, and I do not drink an inordinately greater percentage of Brunello than wines from other appelations. From a recent thread here, someone pointed out they had bad luck with corked wines from Italy than other places, so I wonder if other people have had a particular region that is more prone to having corked bottles than others? For me, it certainly is Italy, which makes up about 40% of my drinking.
admittedly apocryphal,
To cork or not to cork : tradition, romance, science, and the battle for the wine bottle
by Taber, George M.
contains numerous examples of cork suppliers who are understandably aware of which producers/appellations/regions are least discerning of cork taint, and towards which they have directed their least verifiable product.
So without being able to comment on your particular query, it certainly is conceivable.
Hard question to answer. I went back on CT to look at my flawed wines, and found that most of them were flawed for a different reason. Cooked - mostly European stuff. Pre-mox - white burg and some older California chardonnay that I picked up via auction. In terms of corked, my sense is (unscientifically) that it’s been a roughly equal occurrence across geographies. But I didn’t have the energy to do a full on analysis of the corked subset of flawed bottles by region / consumption by region.
However, and perhaps counter to the above, each of the 4 bottles from Tuscany that I tagged as “flawed” were described as “corked”. But then each of the 4 wines from Washington that I indicated as flawed were also characterized as corked.
Apologies for not having a more scientific analysis. It does remind me of something I’ve wished for in the past - I’d love to have the ability on CT to refine “flawed” into a few subcategories - cooked, pre-mox, corked, VA, etc. If that capability existed, the question of “% corked by region” would be fairly easy to determine.
I have way more trouble with mid-80’s Bordeaux than anything else.
Markus - curious if you recently purchased the 2001 Costanti and if so from where?
Please change the title. Corkage refers to restaurant policies regarding bringing your own wine. Frequency of corked wines by appellation is what you want to pursue.
It’s what I was wondering too! I was thinking that someone would charge $5 corkage for a Burgundy but maybe $55 for a good Barolo.
Actually I kind of like that idea! You can keep certain wines out of your restaurant. I’d just reverse the above.
Interesting issue regarding appelations though. I think there are a few things to consider. First, the awareness of the issue. Second, the ability and more important, the willingness of the producers to do anything about it.
I think it became more of an issue in the 2000s because people were drinking wines from the 1980s and 1990s when a slew of new wine producers popped up. Suddenly regions never before heard from were found on every store shelf. That created a demand for more corks and I’m sure a lot of producers bought on price. Then a lot of people just didn’t know what they were tasting and thought it was the way the wine was supposed to taste. That must have turned lots of people off to certain wines.
And then there’s the denial and finally the ability to do something. Vega Sicilia had a problem in the mid 1990s. That wasn’t discovered until later. They spent millions to clean up and now spend lots of money to have their wines and corks tested every year. But they could afford to do that, as could many producers in Bordeaux. Elsewhere? Not so much maybe.
So depending on what one tends to drink, there may be some correlation with appellation. It would be interesting to see some stats on that. Doubtful that they exist though.
Actually, it’s one of the things that a site like this could do. No need for lots of research money. I think there was a thread on corked wines?
Arif, I don’t believe the provenance of a corked wine should matter, since that is a winery issue, other flaws, like heat damage, pre-mox, and even brett can sometimes be traced to the chain. This purchase was from PC, so I’ve probably had it since around 2008 or so. This was the first corked from a batch of 4.
Markus, I certainly agree & was merely trying to suss out whether you, like me, just purchased from WL in which case I would’ve tried one soon. I do think lots joined at the hip (held together over time) may have within similar bottles. Glad to know you had three good ones!
That squares with what I’ve been told by an enologist who specializes in TCA research – Americans raised a huge fuss about TCA and have been getting better quality control by suppliers, but less squeaky wheels have been getting the dregs.