Is there a pre-cork taint era of wine?

[Vince_T]

My understanding is that TCA comes from using Chlorine-containing disinfectants on corks and barrels in combination with the presence of certain microbes. I saw someone post a review of a wine from the 20s that was horribly corked. Is there a a pre-cork taint era?

[Tyler_F]

I believe it’s also from pesticides and insecticides that come into contact with the tree. I imagine the very early 20th century saw now cork taint issues.

[Matt_K1]

TCA can form through a reaction with any chlorinated phenolic compounds. These exist in a variety of ways, most of them synthetic (i.e. fungicides) but I’m quite sure the reaction can happen naturally as well. Interesting question, now I’ll have to try and see if I can find an example of this reaction happening naturally.

Edit: Google Gemini provided me a few scenarios in which these reactions could occur:

Volcanic activity, forest fires, and breakdown of chlorinated organic matter. So it seems like these compounds do exist in nature, which would mean there would be no ‘pre-cork’ taint era of wine, aside from a time where corks were not used as closures.

[phil.lukeman]

This is a really good q.

Using google gemini will tell you a lot of things, but …unless it is synthesing peer-reviewed research on how much and of what kind of chlorinated compounds need to be present, at. what point, in order to generate TCA, …I wouldn’t believe an LLM on this kind of question.

There are many sources of TCA and many points along the bottling of corked that it can be introduced, and it is a complex issue:. For an idea of the complexity, I recommend starting with

" State-of-the-Art Knowledge about 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole (TCA) and Strategies to Avoid Cork Taint in Wine"

State-of-the-Art Knowledge about 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole (TCA) and Strategies...

If TCA is stable over time, someone has likely done GC/MS analyses of old corks. I would look to the analytical chemistry literature for that…

[John_Morris]

Very good question.

It became a serious issue in Bordeaux in the '80s. It’s been a very long time since I’ve drunk Bordeaux older than that, but when I was drinking bottles from the 70s more often, I don’t recall a lot of TCA issues.

I don’t think I’ve encountered it in a pre-1980s Barolo either.

But that’s very anecdotal.

I dimly recall reading that, apart from the way corks were processed, the problem multiplied as the wine market expanded and the quality of cork bark deteriorated because of overharvesting. But I’m not at all sure-- that might just have been speculation.

[Otto_Forsberg]

@Vince_T

My understanding is that TCA comes from using Chlorine-containing disinfectants on corks and barrels in combination with the presence of certain microbes. I saw someone post a review of a wine from the 20s that was horribly corked. Is there a a pre-cork taint era?

Technically there has been no pre-cork taint era, as TCA is formed by microbes / funghi that metabolize chlorine-containing compounds (which are toxic to them) into chlorinated anisoles, which are harmless to them - and are also responsible of that mouldy smell we all know.

Those chlorine-containing compounds occur naturally, so that’s why there has never been a pre-cork taint era. However, there was the era of chlorine-based fungicides / pesticides that started somewhere in the 1950’s, increasing the occurrence of TCA-containing corks substantially, as now there was a lot, lot more of those chlorine compounds in the nature that could be converted to TCA.

@John_Morris

I dimly recall reading that, apart from the way corks were processed, the problem multiplied as the wine market expanded and the quality of cork bark deteriorated because of overharvesting. But I’m not at all sure-- that might just have been speculation.

This partly relates to the chlorine-based pesticides. Historically you had to harvest cork bark from rather high off the ground. If you wanted to increase yield, you could widen the harvested portion by getting the part closer to the ground. However, this is also the part where the bark could’ve been subjected to fungicides and pesticides (as the tree trunks were not treated, only the ground surrounding the tree). The lower you went, the more likely you harvested parts of bark that had received a dose of fungicides as well.

[RichardFlack]

Pre 17th century for sure.

[Chuck_Miller]

Yes, this for sure. I have not had a single wine from the 1600’s or earlier that was corked. YMMV.

[John_Morris]

@Otto_Forsberg

@John_Morris

I dimly recall reading that, apart from the way corks were processed, the problem multiplied as the wine market expanded and the quality of cork bark deteriorated because of overharvesting. But I’m not at all sure-- that might just have been speculation.

This partly relates to the chlorine-based pesticides. Historically you had to harvest cork bark from rather high off the ground. If you wanted to increase yield, you could widen the harvested portion by getting the part closer to the ground. However, this is also the part where the bark could’ve been subjected to fungicides and pesticides (as the tree trunks were not treated, only the ground surrounding the tree). The lower you went, the more likely you harvested parts of bark that had received a dose of fungicides as well.

Interesting!

[John_Morris]

@Otto_Forsberg

Technically there has been no pre-cork taint era, as TCA is formed by microbes / funghi that metabolize chlorine-containing compounds (which are toxic to them) into chlorinated anisoles, which are harmless to them - and are also responsible of that mouldy smell we all know.

Those chlorine-containing compounds occur naturally, so that’s why there has never been a pre-cork taint era. However, there was the era of chlorine-based fungicides / pesticides that started somewhere in the 1950’s, increasing the occurrence of TCA-containing corks substantially, as now there was a lot, lot more of those chlorine compounds in the nature that could be converted to TCA.

But weren’t the cork producers also rinsing the corks with chlorine compounds to sterilize them starting at some point in recent decades? I thought that was part of the problem and that they’ve now stopped doing that.

[David_Bu3ker]

Plenty of corked German wines from the 1970s.

[Zachary_Pearson]

I once almost tasted a corked bottle of something World War 2 era from the Mosel.

Zachary

[Mike_Evans]

The oldest corked wine I’ve had was a magnum of 1945 Latour. Also ruined by the bark closure that night were magnums of 1982 Mouton and 1966 or 1970 Latour (at this point I don’t recall clearly which was corked and which was clean, but the clean one was great).