I Hate Corks

No. Agreed, I might have more tasting experience than many others, but I am not especially sensitive to TCA.

Thus said, I have to repeat myself once again: Cork taint is *not* limited to discernible TCA. From Jamie Goode:

Chloroanisoles other than TCA are also potential contaminants, especially TeCA (2,3,4,6-tetrachoroanisole), which is detectable in wine at concentrations of 10 ng-litre. A 2004 study by Pascal Chatonnet and colleagues identified a further potential musty contaminant, 2,4,6-tribromoanisole (TBA). This causes musty off aromas in wine at concentrations of 4 ng-litre, and is formed from its precursor TBP (tribromophenol). TBP is used as a pesticide inside buildings; barrels, corks and plastics are all susceptible to TBA contamination from the environment in situations where TBP has been used. Old wooden structures are especially susceptible. In support of this hypothesis, Chatonnet cites the results from the analysis of wines carried out by the Ontario Liquour Control Board (a monopoly state-owned supplier) on wines it intends to list. In 2002, 2400 wines were tested. Of those that were considered to have musty taint, only 49% had tainted bottles may have been affected by other chloroanisoles or TBA.

And that's only one further taint source.

And then there is one taint from cork where I am unsure of the source, fruit scalping, and another most probably from too high oxigen permeability, fruit scalping.

The latter, of course!

But, I guess, the whole discussion turns around the definition of "cork tain". Standard and wide-spread definition - obviously what Richard has in his mind - cork taint is when a bottle shows dictinctive signs of TCA taint. You may be less sensitive, then you get a 3% rate, or more sensitive, then you are at 5-8%.

But then there is another phenomenon, well-know to anyone here, but not necessarily buttociated with cork tain: bottle variation. I guess it occurred to anyone here to open a wine he knows well and to find it slightly less good than the last time he had it. Some bottle variation is considered "normal" by many, while in fact, it is not. It's a cork taint problem.

When I speak from 20 to 30% taint rates, I speak from our panel tastings. Whenever one of the tasters - some much more sentive than I am myself - has the slightest suspicion that we might have an off bottle, the back-up bottle is opened. If there is a difference, than by definition the first had a cork taint.

Otoh, if you taste double blind and have no idea about what to expect, you never can detect a slightly off bottle. This is very similar to the conditions most regulars of this group - and practically every wine amateur - gets in contact with wine. You open a bottle, the wine is not obviously tainted, and that's it. You don't know whether a second bottle would taste better or not.

In controlled tasting conditions, with experienced tasters, the chance of a slight taint (we call them Korkschleicher, "cork creepers", in German) being detected is quite high. On the table of an amateur, the chance drops to near zero.

The highest taint level ever experienced was our Bordeaux 1995 tasting in January with a 30-40% taint rate. We tasted the wines blind in roughly ascending order in quality. Whenever anybody showed the slightest concern, we opend the back-up bottle. The farther we went through the tasting, even bottles showing "good" and even "very good" were asked to be retried, because they, in fact, should show "exceptional".

In a recent Bordeaux 2001-02 blind tasting, our panel scored Léoville Las Cases 2001 a straight 90. After declaration of idenbreasty, we opened the second bottle - and there it was, a clear 94. The first bottle was cork tainted by our definition. Served alone, nobody would have said anything, and I doubt it would have made it into the statistics anywhere.

M.