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En brilljant beskrivning av problemet med dåliga korkar, TCA och annat elände skriven av James Laube, en vass journalist på Wine Spectator (den och Decanter är de två vassaste vin-tidningarna på planeten) här;
How does a 12-bottle case of wine shrink to an 11-bottle case or, worse, a 10-bottle case? When you factor in bad corks.
If corks worked the way they’re supposed to—i.e., preserved wines so we could enjoy them at their best—then this debate over their reliability wouldn’t be necessary. And scores of wineries, soon to be hundreds, around the world wouldn’t be seeking alternative closures.
Yet a preponderance of evidence points to an unacceptably high incidence of failed corks. For wine drinkers, faulty corks lead to frustration and annoyance far too often. A bad cork is more than just a spoiled wine. It’s hard-earned money down the drain.
In the worst cases, a cork tainted by a strong presence of 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, or TCA, imparts a musty, moldy character that makes a wine undrinkable; at low levels of TCA, an otherwise appealing wine might taste dull, flat or muted.
Even when TCA is absent, cork-finished wines show a frustrating inconsistency in quality and character. We at Wine Spectator know this because we often taste the same wine from different bottles. One time a wine will be brilliant; the next time it might taste stripped of its flavor.
And no, we’re not just imagining this, or exaggerating the facts.
You hear complaints about bad corks from winemakers and winery owners. They’re annoyed by cork’s inconsistencies and frustrated that defective corks cannot be detected before they’re put into a bottle. Many now carry backup bottles to tastings and dinners—just in case.
You hear complaints from restaurateurs. The threat of corky wines means that they face the embarrassment of serving an off bottle or of having customers return a bottle they’d looked forward to drinking but are unhappy with. When bad bottles need to be replaced it interrupts the flow of a dining experience and can even become a point of contention if the sommelier disagrees and wants to debate the matter.
You hear complaints from retailers and wholesalers, who end up hassling with returned bottles. Then there are the consumers who drink tainted wines and don’t realize it. They are just underwhelmed by the wines. Many undoubtedly avoid those wines the next time they’re shopping or ordering. It’s not the wine’s fault per se, but the winery’s reputation and the merchant’s business suffer anyway.
And, most significantly, you hear it from fellow wine drinkers. It’s reached the point where encountering musty wines due to nasty corks has become exasperatingly predictable. How many times have you stood before a bottle, preparing to open it and wondering whether it’s corky?
How bad is it? A lot worse than you might suspect. In Wine Spectator’s Napa office, we carefully track the number of “corky” bottles. In our tastings of California wines, the percentage of defective corks routinely runs at 15 percent. Do the math: It comes to roughly two bottles per case.
Perhaps we are unusually sensitive to TCA-tainted corks. But our results are not unusual. At the California Wine Experience this past November, hundreds of bottles of rare and expensive wines from many of the world’s greatest producers were poured. All of the wines came directly from the owners’ cellars, and should therefore have been in perfect condition (having been kept at ideal cellar temperature). A team of well-known sommeliers from around the country prepared the wines. They told me the percentage of “corky” wines ranged between 4 percent and 12 percent.
According to the sommeliers, one winery had a nightmarish incidence: Thirteen of its 72 bottles, or 18 percent, were off because of rank corks. And only one winery out of three dozen that presented wines had zero “corky” bottles.
After a recent wine competition in Australia, the 2004 Macquarie Bank Sydney Royal Wine Show, officials said that one of every 12 cork-sealed bottles was tainted by TCA.
Perhaps it comes as no surprise that the cork industry has a different estimate about cork failure: typically about 1 percent to 2 percent. Accept that, and defective corks don’t seem much of a problem.
But let’s face it: Cork producers aren’t objective in their stance and don’t pretend to be. It’s their business and it’s been a highly lucrative one. They’ve essentially had a corner on the market of wine closures for decades, if not centuries. But these days, they’re losing their monopoly because they either can’t ensure high quality corks or have ignored the problem to the point where many winemakers have said enough’s enough.
That’s why many cork producers have hedged their bets and now offer alternatives. They’re smart enough to see the writing on the wall.
For the sake of argument, let’s split the difference between my figures and theirs and say that between 7 percent and 8 percent of wines are corky. That translates to one bad bottle per case.
When it comes to closures, the main goal for most vintners is to help the wine be the best it can be throughout its life. Clearly, corks are a very weak link. In my opinion, screw caps, or twist-offs, are a better closure alternative from just about every point of view. (I don’t like synthetic stoppers. I have found them difficult to remove and, in my experience, over time they can impart a slight chemical flavor and lead to high levels of oxidation.)
Moreover, the use of cork has had more to do with image and tradition than it has with cork’s being the ideal seal. Virtually any vintner wanting to present the image of an upscale wine chose cork, primarily because the most prestigious wines from France did.
And the truth is that when corks work perfectly they are excellent closures. Trouble is, no two corks are exactly alike, so even when you find a wine with a perfect one, it’s no guarantee for the other bottles. If you doubt this point, start collecting your used corks and give them a sniff. They all smell different. Some of them, you can be sure, could impart unwelcome flavors.
Another truth is that corks expire with age. A few wineries recognize that fact and recork their library wines every 25 years or so, but that’s not a viable process for most collectors. Ultimately the wines you want to cellar the longest—typically your most expensive and prized bottles—run the greatest risk of eventual cork failure. If you’ve ever removed a dried out, brittle, crumbling cork from a wine bottle and watched the dusty film form in your glass, you know exactly what I mean.
Of course, most wines aren’t aged very long to begin with. In America, at least, most wines, perhaps as many as 95 percent, are consumed within a year of purchase. And most white wines are consumed even earlier—often times within hours or days of purchase. One hardly needs a marginal closure such as cork when long-term cellaring isn’t called for.
Twist-offs appear to be the best alternative at this point, but the wine trade has long frowned upon them. They were wrongfully assumed to be inferior closures because the wines they sealed were typically inferior-quality wines.
However, exhaustive testing by industry titans such as Gallo showed decades ago that twist-offs were actually far superior to corks. One of the early leaders in twist-offs is Stelvin, owned by the French firm Pechiney. This aluminum screw cap preserves the bouquet and flavors of the wine and allows the bottle to be easily opened and resealed.
Stelvin’s track record for failure is virtually nil, according to wineries that have used the product. Wineries in Australia, for example, have experimented with Rieslings sealed with twist-offs for decades. Those wines taste fresh and lively after years in bottle, and each bottle tastes as fresh as the next, which is why more wineries are turning to twist-offs.
In California, PlumpJack bottled its Napa Valley Reserve Cabernet, a wine that sells for $150, with a twist-off. Both of Carl Doumani’s Napa Valley Rhône reds, Quixote and Panza, use the same closure. Caymus is bottling Conundrum, its white table wine, with twist-offs. Bonny Doon, Seghesio, Andrew Murray, Calera, Beringer (with its Two Tone Farm label), Whitehall Lane and Clos Pegase have each bottled at least some of their wines with aluminum caps. And there are other creative closures being studied and tested, too.
The broad-based use of alternative closures will undoubtedly be slow in coming, although their adoption is indeed gaining momentum. Wineries in New Zealand have wholeheartedly embraced twist-offs for the majority of their white wines. But alternatives will require mind-set adjustments from consumers. They will also involve changes in the way wines are made.
One issue will be how to deal with the fact that twist-offs provide an anaerobic environment for wine. But that should be an easy hurdle to clear. The ideal cork, one that preserves a wine the longest, produces a virtually anaerobic seal too.
But advantages in wine preservation aren’t the only virtues of alternative closures. Twist-offs (or snap-on glass caps or any other invention that eventually makes its way to market) will eliminate the need for a separate tool—a corkscrew—to open wine bottles. (I wonder how many Americans actually own a corkscrew, anyway?) A twist-off bottle is simply easier to open.
Wine is a living thing, and many factors can cause it to change once in bottle, foremost among them storage conditions and microbial activity. No closure can save a poorly made wine, one that has Brettanomyces or volatile acidity or one that was aged in bad cooperage. Storage conditions after bottling have a huge impact on wine quality too, and one that has little or nothing to do with closures.
But let’s assume that the wine put into the bottle is good. The best way to ensure that the wine that is poured out of the bottle is also good is to avoid using a stopper that has a built-in failure rate.
I’m more nervous than ever that the special bottle I’m opening for dinner or for friends will end up smelling moldy, and that another opportunity to enjoy a fine wine will be destroyed. I’m not alone in opening bottles and sampling them before serving them or taking them to a restaurant, just to be sure.
Those who associate corks with tradition and history are clinging to a false notion of romance at the expense of practicality. Except for people in denial, corks hardly convey an upscale image these days.
I think younger wine drinkers will gravitate to alternatives. They’ll realize it’s illogical to use a plug of tree bark that could be moldy, or tainted by TCA, to keep wine fresh. Savvy wine drinkers are already accepting that it’s what’s in the bottle that counts—not what seals it. They will support vintners who are more concerned about wine quality and preserving value for their drinkers than they are about the prestige that they think cork still implies.
Buying bottles sealed with cork is like playing Russian roulette. Pull enough corks and eventually everybody loses. Wine deserves better protection. Wine drinkers don’t need the aggravation.
Specifikt
Vinet är 2 år gammalt så vi kan utesluta övermognad men ändå ma o statisktikt rätt stor chans att det var nått fel på vinet. Lägg tilll dessa 400 meter problembeskrivning att röd bourgogne är förmodligen det mest känsliga av de mer respekterade vintyperna. Att det är det som brukar skapa de största skillnader bland omdömmen (gamla antingen hata eller älska, du vet). Vinet du drack är ett lätt men ändå komplext, friskt vin med hög syra (även som odefekt) och dör lätt av olika saker, för stark "fel" mat, sprit innan, jordnötter etc etc. Jag kan te x tänka mig att även en korrekt flaska smakar stark salami tillsammans med stark salami. Prova en flaska till och kolla om du tycker bättre om det. Om inte, välj ett annat, kanske du helt enkelt inte gillar det! Livet är för kort för att grubbla på saker man inte gillar oavsett om det är kaffe, vin, te eller lödkolvar
VH,Kalle
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