Cork Taint

Posted by Alan Boehmer Aug 15, 2007

Cork is still considered the best closure for wine, despite the advances of synthetics and screw caps. At this time, all wines destined for long-term cellaring use cork closures. Those intended for extremely long cellaring (some vintage Ports and Madeiras, for example) will sometimes feature a wax or plastic dip in addition to the cork.

But there is a significant downside to cork. Natural cork contains varying amounts of TCA (that’s 2, 4, 6- trichloroanisole for those readers with a scientific inclination). TCA is a potent, powerfully intense chemical compound. 2 parts per trillion can be easily detected by most people. That’s about 1 drop of TCA in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. TCA in the amounts found in wine is not a health threat, but it can ruin the flavor and aroma of any wine.

The wine industry has long been aware that approximately one bottle in twenty will have detectable levels of cork taint, or TCA. Buy two cases of wine with cork closures and it’s likely that one bottle will be tainted. In a recent blind tasting of 47 wines, we sent back six due to cork taint.

How can you tell when a wine is “corked?” Cork taint reveals itself in several different ways. It can simply diminish the fruit flavors and, especially, the aromas of the wine. The wine may lack aroma entirely. Or the wine may smell musty and cellar-like. Most commonly, a corked wine will smell of wet paper.

If you order a bottle of wine in a restaurant and you detect mustiness or wet paper in the aroma, send it back for another bottle. You need not even taste it. While we know that around one bottle out of every twenty (5%) stocked by a restaurant will exhibit cork taint, actual returns represent a much smaller percentage. And many of these wines are refused for reasons other than cork taint. Most reputable wine retailers will allow you to return wines that show evidence of cork taint. Just don’t try to return an empty bottle for a refund.