We have a couple people in our circle who are unable to detect TCA.
For those who don’t know, it’s your detection of TCA that effects your perception of the wine, rather than it actually changing the wine. So, if you don’t have the receptors for TCA, the wine tastes absolutely normal. Not the worst problem to have. (Like when no one wants any more of your WOTN.)
In an ideal world, you should be able to express your opinion of any wine and its alleged flaws without creating a kerfuffle. And that means, quite frankly, that if I don’t care for the style of Wine A I should be able to say that as long as I don’t then proclaim that the person who brought Wine A has the palate of a yak. As I was told a long time ago by someone who brought a wine that didn’t show well: “I didn’t make the wine, I just bought it.”
In the real world, though, some people have a tremendous amount of ego bound up with the bottle they’ve brought. Even when it’s blindingly obvious that a wine is flawed (usually TCA, but could be something else), the person who brought it will sings its praises and vehemently deny that anything is wrong. Over the years I’ve probably made a few people unhappy with my pronouncements of a flawed bottle, esp. when they take it as a personal insult. Luckily, I have very few people like that in my regular winetasting groups.
Bruce
Bruce, I like your style and agree with you on our ability to express an opinion and avoid criticising another. I sense there is an inherent desire on most peoples part to please and in this case, share a wine with others to the extent of either denying of minimalizing the existence of a flaw. As with you, I have made some folks displeased with the pronouncement of a flaw even when Ive been careful to not personalise it. It`s a fine line and one of the reasons I started this thread.
Welcome to my world! Some people think we are just being “picky,” but when it assaults your senses, it is very unpleasant and difficult to ignore.
My daughter is the same way. She is now 23, but when she was 9 or 10, she asked my mentor to arrange a wine tasting for her. She wanted to know what it was all about, as I had just gone into business, and was in total immersion mode. So he instructed her (and man, I was still learning), and it was not the first wine she had ever had. She declared his special bottle “corked!” He was horrified; I agreed with her. Subsequent openings of that wine from the same cellar showed perfect character. It was the Gan Eden, I think perhaps the 1986.
my favourite wine flaw moment was when i was asked by one of the better US importers to carry a line of German wines at my then-current company.
their regular distrib was otherwise committed for NY/NJ so wanted to sell the wines through us.
i missed the first part of the meeting, arrived thirty minutes into it,
finding the owner of my company, the imp and the owner of their regular distrib enjoying themselves…
‘James! Try the Spätlese from ••••• it’s really ripping good!’
big sniff, big slug of Spätlese; i said: Gentlemen, this bottle is corked.
of course it had been absolutely ice cold when they tried it…
Ah, but to answer at least some of the question at hand, if I am at a congenial tasting/dinner, I usually look around for another woman. Sometimes that’s difficult! I will quietly ask her what she thinks of wine A. If our eyes meet and I determine she knows it, too, then I will confirm and then pose the question to the rest of the table. Some people with practiced palates absolutely do not detect TCA. It can skew the voting, for sure, but it is what it is.
My favorite story about this was a panel I sat on after about 5 years in the business of ten year old Napa Cabernets tasted blind with an MW, a retailer with an encyclopedic memory and two writers who had been at it for over 30 years each. Going around the table after tasting we all had to defend our top and bottom wines. I was the last one to speak and the wine I was going to comment on I felt strongly was slightly corked. After listening to all of these others say nothing about TCA I realized it was one of those career decisions and I stated my conclusion. They all went back to their glasses and soon the comments acknowledged that they now detected the flaw. The interesting thing was the wine didn’t finish last in the flight.
I guess being ITB and having high end rarity experience for so many years has yielded a much more matter of fact attitude about off bottles for me. Over time, I tasted many flawed bottles(I still have a corked 1971 Romanee Conti, 20% full, opened in the 80’s,sitting in my cellar as a reminder of vinous pitfalls)
Simplistically, I look at wine as a food, made from fruit of a vine, so common it is produced around the world by thousands of wineries. Its original intention is to enhance life. Flawed bottles are common.
I see it as factual to know a bottle is flawed and not a crime to mention it tactfully, or bring it into question so others can become aware as a learning experience. If doing so is interpreted as a personal attack, it was done wrong, or the provider has ascribed undue value and sensitivity to a bottle. Social values ascribed when enshrining a bottle of grape juice yield fascinating results, all in the eye of the beholder.
Wine is an agricultural product which probably made itself when left in a Mediterranean bowl eons ago, but made today with sophisticated processing. And it is still produced for enjoyment. If something went wrong in that complicated process, it ain’t the end of the world, nor should it have to be a secret.
Wine is for drinking, sharing, conversing and enjoying as I see it.
Unless I brought the wine - no I don’t mention.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a “bad/skunky” wine.
Good story and one that Ive had as well. In fact, it is this suggestive comment that persuades others to re-sample and now agree. Ive been on both ends.
Our dinner group has so many knowledgable folks, that I just make my own notes and sit back and wait for the comments. There are times when someone else will blurt out “corked” or whatever and we are all biased at that point and almost compelled to find a way to agree. This is one those times that sponsored this thread and I find it interesting as to how other responders deal with this issue. Im in the camp of having everyone get their own views and then all share together. This takes anothers comment out it.
A big factor has to do with our individual sensory perception being a variable in this conversation.
Sorry, Wes, but I am not leaning toward that opinion. I have had wines with barely susceptible aromas of TCA but the fruit has been entirely missing in action. I would certainly suggest, although I am not 100% positive, that anyone would detect that the wine was absent of fruit. This would be for a wine only 3-5 years old and not a 20+ yr old wine. YMMV.
I think, like with a lot of things wine-related, this can be very variable depending on the wine and the taster. I’ve had wines that had a subtle “musty”/wet cardboard note on the nose, but the wine still had strong fruit, and I doubted myself as to whether it was corked or not… I think a big part of it is that I just have a low TCA sensitivity/high tolerance, but part of it was just variability even in tasting the same wine – one wine I could taste/smell the “musty” notes intermittently when I burped lol while drinking it, but it wasn’t consistent, and the wine overall was still enjoyable.
For me, as someone who isn’t great at picking TCA, lighter than expected (or scalped) fruit, and a surprising imbalance of tannins/acidity to the fore, are often the hints to have a closer sniff for mustiness.
So IME yes TCA does most definitely affect the rest of the wine.
One of the best demonstrations of this though, is the ‘plastic bag trick’ used to remove the taint from the wine. Using the right plastic does a very good job at removing the TCA, however what is left is typically still stripped of some of the fruit (varying according to the level of taint).
This is a very relevant point. A corked wine may not have any wet cardboard notes, but be devoid of fruit or substantially have less fruit AND power. I recently had a Corton Charlemagne that was corked. It had some fruit, but no thrust nor power and no perceptible TCA. For those who are familiar with wines from this region and in this case from the producer, you know something is amiss.
I have seen it explained as think of TCA being evidenced in a bell curve. There are instance when its perceivable and instances where its not, but the fruit has been sapped and dissipated.
Blake,
This reminds me of a story. My daughter in law has a winemaker cousin. This cousin, whom I have known longer than my DIL, gave me a few bottles and I took one to a party my DIL threw. The bottle was corked. Nobody noticed so I kept my mouth shut until their Australian neighbor, also a winemaker, gave me a funny look. I took him aside and said, let them enjoy it…who will know ?? They enjoyed the wine.
We drank the Rhone he brought.
Blake,
Great stories and anecdotes.
One of my ‘biggest’ challenges here is the fact that many will say a wine is ‘slightly corked’ because the wine ‘isn’t right’. Perhaps the fruit is amiss; perhaps the finish is clipped. And this is based on hopefully prior knowledge of this particular bottling, not the reputation of the producer or that specific region.
As you and I both know, there are so many other reasons why a bottle may not show that well. It could be ever so slightly oxidized - perhaps from a cork that allowed too much oxygen in - and this could lead to a wine that doesn’t smell oxidized but is just slightly ‘flat’. It could be due to just a hint of heat damage that most might not be able to pick out. It might also be due to the ‘timing of opening a bottle’ - perhaps it’s just ‘shut down’ (something that is still difficult for me to explain to others because there is ‘no science’ behind this).
I do feel it is challenging to announce when a bottle is flawed for so many reasons. I’ve been with other winemakers and have noted a higher than acceptable level of VA to me, only to have the winemaker who made the bottle say that the bottle was not only fine, but exemplary. I’ve been told a wine or two of mine showed signs of brett when I know it is not present.
And when dealing with non-wine folks, they always seem to look towards us for ‘approval’ or at least ‘acceptance’ that a wine is okay. I am not one to slash others so I generally don’t say anything - unless the flaw is so obvious that it’s tough to avoid. Overtly corked wines - yep, I do say something, but don’t ‘blurt it out’. Same with VA, brett, oxidation . . . I think it’s important to educate all to these ‘faults’ so that they can understand them and hopefully understand that the wine is not supposed to have these in them (unless it is a specific style that the winemaker is trying to show).
So much more to say - but others have said such great things already . . .
Cheers.
Love it Mel. BTW, have you seen the WS magnums report from Meadows? I have it if you want me to forward it on.
Beautifully stated Larry. I agree wholeheartedly with all you say and the way it is to be said. It is a challenge to be on the spot and know what if anything to say which is why I started this thread to find out what others do in these instances. It`s been very interesting and I appreciate all for their contributions. We can only grow and be better in our communications with others.
Blake, I stopped subscribing to Allen when i stopped buying green bananas…would love to see what he had to say about those wines…