CWD: Corked Craze

B

Bill Averett

Bill Averett
I have had a massive amount of corked bottles recently. Of course, this could be a bad string of luck, but I'm starting to wonder...

Tonight, I had a corked bottle of Burgaud Morgon Cote de Puy 2007. I had heard that adding Saran wrap to the wine would cure it of TCA taint, so I decanted the bottle and added some plastic. I had never tried it, so I figured what the hell? Although the corkiness dissipated, the wine did not get better (as I have experienced it before). Has anyone tried using this technique? Will anyone admit to trying it?

I have a 20 bottle wine fridge, and the last 4 wines that I have pulled out have been corked. Can wines made and bottled in different places all over the world, come together in a small space and infect each other? I wouldn't think that wine could catch an incurable cold, but... None of the bottles that I keep in this fridge stay in there very long either. This is my drinking storage unit.

I keep bottles in a separate room in cardboard boxes. Can these wines be affecting each other as well? Do I need to de-TCA my entire house? I swear I'm not crazy, but I'm sick of corked bottles!!! Right now, I would love to see Luneau Papin and all of my Beaujolais producers switch to twist offs.
 
The plastic wrap treatment is standard at my house. My results have been widely variablesometimes it seems to help a great deal, sometimes not at all. The resulting wine is never as good as an untainted bottle, never "cured," but sometimes it can be returned to limited drinkability (limited to me, I mean).

I don't think your bottles are infecting one another. Carboard boxes can be TCA-ish, but again, I don't see how that would affect a stoppered bottle. Just a run of bad luck.
 
Chris, thanks for the quick response.

I'm worried, because I have just started "collecting." I would hate to think it is all for naught.
 
originally posted by Chris Coad:
The plastic wrap treatment is standard at my house. My results have been widely variablesometimes it seems to help a great deal, sometimes not at all. The resulting wine is never as good as an untainted bottle, but sometimes it can be returned to limited drinkability (limited to me, I mean).

I don't think your bottles are infecting each other. Carboard boxes can be TCA-ish, but again, I don't see how that would affect a stoppered bottle. Just a run of bad luck.
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Do you sincerely feel that this helps???
 
originally posted by drssouth:
originally posted by Chris Coad:
The plastic wrap treatment is standard at my house. My results have been widely variablesometimes it seems to help a great deal, sometimes not at all. The resulting wine is never as good as an untainted bottle, but sometimes it can be returned to limited drinkability (limited to me, I mean).

I don't think your bottles are infecting each other. Carboard boxes can be TCA-ish, but again, I don't see how that would affect a stoppered bottle. Just a run of bad luck.
Click to expand...

Do you sincerely feel that this helps???
Click to expand...

Absolutely, it can help!!!

I'm neither a chemist nor Mark Lipton, but my understanding is that TCA binds to the friendly molecular thingamabobs in the plastic wrap, which it likes more than the unfriendlier molecular thingamabobs in the wine. It never works 100%, but once I was actually able to sneak a wine past Dr. Lisa that she had nearly retched at the night before.
 
I have also heard that it is tough to detect a corked bottle of Champagne. However, I've noticed recently(a Coutier NV for instance) to be severely flawed.

I love to play poker, but in instances of bad luck, you can lay fold the cards. Unfortunately, I cannot cook or eat dinner without wine.

Close to despair, I've popped a Vichtenaar. Ahh...
 
originally posted by Chris Coad:

I'm neither a chemist nor Mark Lipton, but my understanding is that TCA binds to the friendly molecular thingamabobs in the plastic wrap, which it likes more than the unfriendlier molecular thingamabobs in the wine. It never works 100%, but once I was actually able to sneak a wine past Dr. Lisa that she had nearly retched at the night before.
Click to expand...

I only play a chemist on TV, but certain plastic wraps made of polyethylene do indeed seem to absorb the TCA out of the wine. The problem is that there may be more than TCA being removed. My experience is that the wines will often get less corky, but never get very appealing. At best, they lose the mustiness but still seem muted and flat. I suspect that this arises from a remaining low-level TCA taint that results in "fruit scalping."

Jamie Goode
Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Chris Coad:

I'm neither a chemist nor Mark Lipton, but my understanding is that TCA binds to the friendly molecular thingamabobs in the plastic wrap, which it likes more than the unfriendlier molecular thingamabobs in the wine. It never works 100%, but once I was actually able to sneak a wine past Dr. Lisa that she had nearly retched at the night before.
Click to expand...

I only play a chemist on TV, but certain plastic wraps made of polyethylene do indeed seem to absorb the TCA out of the wine. The problem is that there may be more than TCA being removed. My experience is that the wines will often get less corky, but never get very appealing. At best, they lose the mustiness but still seem muted and flat. I suspect that this arises from a remaining low-level TCA taint that results in "fruit scalping."

Jamie Goode
Mark Lipton
Click to expand...
Also a chance that tasty hydrophobic metabolites are being absorbed as well....
 
originally posted by SFJoe:

Also a chance that tasty hydrophobic metabolites are being absorbed as well....
Click to expand...

This seems the likely explanation to me. There's no reason polyethylene should have a specific affinity for TCA.
 
originally posted by Bill Averett:
Corked ChampagneI have also heard that it is tough to detect a corked bottle of Champagne. However, I've noticed recently(a Coutier NV for instance) to be severely flawed.
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Really? I have found that corkiness in champagne can be detected right away.
 
originally posted by Arjun Mendiratta:
originally posted by SFJoe:

Also a chance that tasty hydrophobic metabolites are being absorbed as well....
Click to expand...

This seems the likely explanation to me. There's no reason polyethylene should have a specific affinity for TCA.
Click to expand...
I think it's just a logP partition.
 
Bill, are you by any chance Catholic? It could be YOUR fault the wines are corked. If the plastic wrap doesn't work try going to church.
 
Not a Catholic. Although I do drink with a lot of Catholics. It could be there fault. I was raised a Jew, so I KNOW it was all of YA'LLs faults. I bought the fridge before I started commenting on this board. But this bad ju-ju has only started to arise recently. The logical conclusion is that Coad has programmed a virus that can morph into TCA as I open my laptop, which happens to be in my office where I keep my wine.
 
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