by
Shannon Porter, Personal Wine Consultant with The Traveling Vineyard
You’re sitting at a five-star restaurant, enjoying
a wonderful meal and are looking forward to a fine bottle of wine. The
waiter brings it to your table and with a flourish… unscrews the
cap. Has this happened to you? If not yet, it may soon! While to most
wine lovers this scenario sounds appalling, it may be better than the
alternative – a bottle of wine that is spoiled due to a tainted
cork. In fact, wine experts predict that by 2010, a large number of
winemakers will be using either synthetic corks or screw top wine bottles.
An average
of 5% of all wine produced is spoiled by tainted corks – and that
percentage ends up costing the wine industry approximately $100 million
dollars per year. So what exactly causes “corked” wine?
The culprit is something called TCA, short for 2,4,6-trichloranisole
(now you see it is just called TCA), which is caused when microorganisms
in the natural cork combine with chemical contaminants used in the disinfecting
process to kill bacteria.
In small amounts, TCA mutes the fruit flavors in the wine, making it
taste flat. At higher levels, TCA has a distinctive odor that people
have described as “essence of wet cardboard or a damp cellar.”
TCA in small amounts such as those found in wine won’t make you
physically ill, it will just make the wine smell and taste undesirable.
If you purchase a “corked” bottle of wine in either a restaurant
or liquor store, don’t hesitate to take it back for a replacement
and know that corked wine just “happens”; it doesn’t
mean the wine is cheap or that all the bottles from the vintage will
be bad.
Another reason wineries are switching their sealing methods is that
the demand for natural cork has increased significantly since the 1980s
as more and more wineries have sprouted up around the world. The cork
used for wine bottling comes from Portuguese oak trees, grown only in
Portugal, and there are only so many of them in existence. Thus, growers
are over harvesting their supplies and this allows for inferior cork
that is more apt to crumble or deteriorate.
Synthetic, or plastic corks, seem to have been the sealer of choice
for many of the New World wineries in Australia, New Zealand, South
America and the U.S. Synthetic corks allow for the “romance”
of opening a bottle of wine with a corkscrew, but they will never be
tainted with TCA. However, some wine experts argue that the plastic
imparts an unnatural flavor to the wine.
Screw tops on the other hand offer ease of opening and no contamination
by TCA, plastic or air. However, some air in the wine as it ages may
be beneficial. Natural cork actually allows the wine to “breathe”
a little as it ages, which experts argue is needed for the wine to evolve
over time. Screw tops do not let air penetrate the wine at all and some
say this makes the wine stagnant or frozen in time, instead of evolving
as it ages.
So, the great corking debate continues… and probably will for
some time. For now which method is used is the personal choice of the
winemaker. Just know that if you do purchase or receive a bottle of
wine with a synthetic cork or screw top it doesn’t mean the wine
is inferior or cheap. It just may not be as fun to open. And if I were
you, I probably wouldn’t buy a bunch of stock in corkscrews.
Zinfully
yours, Shannon
Shannon
Porter is an Independent Wine Consultant with The Traveling Vineyard
and has conducted over 200 wine tastings. Started in 2002 as a division
of Geerlings and Wade - the largest direct to consumer wine distributor
in the U.S. - The Traveling Vineyard is based on a simple premise: the
best way to buy wine is to taste it first. Modeled after tasting rooms
found at fine wineries the world over, The Traveling Vineyard allows
you to sample and learn about wine in the comfort of your own home.
To learn more about booking a free in-home wine tasting event or for
information on how to become an independent wine consultant; visit:
www.freewinetasting.net.
