Is it just me or have folks (hey, y'all) noticed a lower incidence of corked bottles over the last couple of years? I honestly don't remember the last corked bottle - probably at a big tasting in March or thereabouts, and I'm averaging at least 1 bottle a day. That includes some screwcaps, but still...
TCA incidence
- Thread starter Yixin
- Start date
Arnt Egil Nordlien
Arnt Egil Nordlien
I have no lower percentage nowadays. But then again I drink less and less fewer and fewer young wines, so perhaps that only confirms your theory. Two corked bottles during the last week:
-Chateauneuf-du-Pape 1988, Domaine de Galet des Papes
-Teroldego Rotaliano Masi Scari 1978, Barone de Cles
-Chateauneuf-du-Pape 1988, Domaine de Galet des Papes
-Teroldego Rotaliano Masi Scari 1978, Barone de Cles
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Fewer and fewer young wines.
The grammar police strike again!
Kevin Roberts
Kevin Roberts
Hvordan er ditt norsk?
Skl!
Kevin
(I realize you weren't being cranky, I just wanted to bust out the Norwegian. Since it is such a useful language to have taken in college...)
Arnt Egil Nordlien
Arnt Egil Nordlien
I know this. But sometimes I make such errors anyway. Thanks for correcting.
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
I think the intended use was ajectival, not adverbial. Tuk Drong? (Thai certainly vies with Norwegian as a lingua franca).
I've had some suspect bottles which I thought were due more to bad storage than cork taint, given that I am (was?) sensitive to it. Corked wines typically make me want to throw up.
Good point about younger wines - the question could be rephrased as one asking whether the TCA incidence seems to be lower in more recent corks.
Of course, now the stage is set for an ungodly number of corked wines...
Good point about younger wines - the question could be rephrased as one asking whether the TCA incidence seems to be lower in more recent corks.
Of course, now the stage is set for an ungodly number of corked wines...
Peter Creasey
Peter Creasey
Maybe there's something to be said for being non-TCA-susceptible!
. . . . . . Pete
. . . . . . Pete
Dan Donahue
Dan Donahue
Knock on (cork) wood.
I mentioned the same thing a few weeks ago and was promptly hit by back-to-back corked burgs.
Oliver McCrum
Oliver McCrum
I agree, it's much less common than it was five years ago. Still too high, though.
I resent having to spend the first few seconds tasting a new bottle worrying about it rather than enjoying it. I have recently started to import my first few screwcapped wines, and it is a relief not to have to think about it; each bottle tastes the way it did when I was tasting with the producer, what a concept.
I resent having to spend the first few seconds tasting a new bottle worrying about it rather than enjoying it. I have recently started to import my first few screwcapped wines, and it is a relief not to have to think about it; each bottle tastes the way it did when I was tasting with the producer, what a concept.
Eden Mylunsch
Eden Mylunsch
Yes, the incidence of TCA has seemingly been lower over the past few years. I think the cork industry got religion about the time that Stelvin and Vino-lok got market share.
I work a couple of large-scale wine events each year and the sommeliers have a betting pool wherein we estimate how many bottles will be flawed (TCA is invariably -but not always- the culprit but I feel this anecdotal evidence germane to the discussion regardless). At one of the events (World of Pinot Noir) we open about 600 bottles over the course of a couple of days of seminars and meals. Flawed wines opened during the grand tastings aren't counted because the somms don't have control over them. When the event first began, we'd usually have upwards of 80-100 bottles with definite quality issues, almost all cork-related. The past two years the winners of the pool won with guesses in the 12-18 bottle range. Sum-one else can calculate that percentage, but it's low enough to not be a huge concern any more (besides, it's only a buck to get into the pool).
I've also seen vast improvement in the quality of corks that are being shipped to Australia. It felt as if during the mid-to-late 1990s the cork industry was going out of their way to ship substandard corks to Oz. The 1998 vintage has proven to be particularly difficult, with a huge percentage of corks in a lot of high-end bottles turning out to have been tainted by TCA. In reaction to this a lot of winemakers switched to Stelvin and the cork industry reacted by improving their quality control. It's much better these days; it's been months since I had a recent-vintage Aussie wine with TCA issues.
The cork industry has done a good job of correcting a problem, but it's sort of like Boeing saying "hey, our planes aren't crashing as often as they used to." There's still a potential for problems here, and it can't all be blamed on user malfunction.
-Eden (I don't remember whether it was the corked mag of 72 La Tache or the corked mag of 1985 Henri Jayer Richebourg that led me to believe that the Stelvin closure was on to a good thing, regardless of its lack of romance and history)
My feeling was yes, but an actual scan of the numbers shows that the percentage of cork-finished wines that smell corked is more or less the same...certainly well within my own margin of error.
I have a lot fewer corked wines because of the escalating percentage of things that's closed with something else, but that's a separate issue.
FWIW, the synthcork failure rate is well down this year because I ripped the capsules off pretty much every suspect bottle...though of course I found another one last night that was toast.
And I continue to have extremely minor issues with reduction. By way of comparison, I'd guess that John Gilman is compelled to rail at thousand-word length against 700 reduced wines for every one that I encounter.
I have a lot fewer corked wines because of the escalating percentage of things that's closed with something else, but that's a separate issue.
FWIW, the synthcork failure rate is well down this year because I ripped the capsules off pretty much every suspect bottle...though of course I found another one last night that was toast.
And I continue to have extremely minor issues with reduction. By way of comparison, I'd guess that John Gilman is compelled to rail at thousand-word length against 700 reduced wines for every one that I encounter.
Scott Kraft
Scott Kraft
How do you know he didn't mean "lesser and lesser"?
(And if you ding me for having the question mark outside the quotes, I'll start calling you a crackpot grammarian.)
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
The grammar police have checked in with their superiors, the coherency inspectors, who have determined that neither taking less as modifying age nor taking the mistake as for "lesser and lesser" make any sense within the larger context. They return therefore with their original correction but also with compliments for all the good citizens out there capable of reimagining new sentences that parse.
U
Unknown
Guest
Someone was wondering why my cellar was upside down and inside out on Saturday. I was on a mission - trying to weed out synthetics.