Entire Barrel Of Wine Corked

Cellar Rats (ITB)
1

How does an entire barrel of recently harvested wine that was just put into barrel wind up horribly corked?

2

[cheers.gif]

3

I’ve also read that can happen, though I’ve never run across anyone who’s had that unfortunate situation happen to them.

4

Beaulieu and Mayacamas (?) had entire barrel rooms infected with TCA.

5

Bob, I know BV had the issues, and it was rampant. This was a single barrel that was horribly corked. Several subsequent barrels samples had zero issue.

6

It was before my time at Peachy, but they had gotten a new barrel that had new wine put into it, and it was corked. If the wood had been treated with chlorine and also had a mold issue, it is possible. Of course, there are wineries with environmental TCA issues that might contribute, but in our case it was just the one barrel. Maybe the barrel maker themselves had an environmental TCA issue? I don’t know.

7

If the wood on the container floors that the barrels are shipped in is dosed with tca, or tba, it’s possible for that contaminant to migrate. Scary, but true.

8

Wow- that’s gonna take a lot of plastic wrap…

9

We had a barrel that was corked a few years back. The cooperage’s insurance company paid us for the spoiled wine, the wine was dumped down the drain, and the cooperage reimbursed us for the barrel and credited us for another new barrel the next year.

I think it was the most profitable transaction we had that year. [highfive.gif]

10

Ducru Beaucaillou in the late '80’s had a serious problem, too.

11

I hope the thief wasn’t used to sample subsequent barrels.

12

When I attended a seminar given by ETS Labs they mentioned how some pallets that were used for shipping were infected with TCA. They were from somewhere in South America, as I recall.

13

There was a recent article in Wines & Vines Magazine about TCA in barrels:
Is Barrel TCA the New Cork Taint?

14

Did someone smell the bbl before the wine was put in?

15

Good discussion of this problem in the recent book To Cork or Not to Cork. Scary indeed and a

of entire wineries have been tainted and had to be completely cleaned.

Dave
ITB Calicaro wine
www.calicaro.com