Rate of corked wines

originally posted by Oliver McCrum:
originally posted by nigel groundwater:
originally posted by Oliver McCrum:
The main problem with Altec, not to put too fine a point on it, is that it ruined large amounts of wine. As a small importer/distributor I lost hundreds of cases, I can't imagine what the total losses were.
Well of course that would explain your total rejection of cork then.

Non sequitur.
Perhaps I needed to explain the sequence for you then.

You decided that cork was an unacceptably flawed product years ago..."I still [my bold] think hacking off sheets of tree bark, cutting it into plugs, and sticking it into bottles of wine is an odd behavior in 2013".
You then found Altec [also cork but with other constituents] and it too failed to live up to your expectations with an even worse performance so you turned to the screwcap which appears to satisfy your requirements.

However isn't it reasonable to conclude that such disappointments explain what seems like a total rejection of cork and things cork-related? I think I can even recall an occasion when, much later, you implicated a DIAM Mytik in a taint of a particularly fine Prosecco.

However perhaps I have badly misunderstood your viewpoint on the many occasions we have participated in such threads in different forums over the years.

But this thread wasn’t about alternatives or arguing over closures generally.
Claude, having described his experience of an astonishing reduction in TCA faults enquired whether others had had the same experience. Others responded that they had to varying degrees.

I simply sought to provide freely available evidence that would provide a rationale for such an experience.
You appear to dislike or distrust the evidence presented.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Anyone know how this ardeaseal thingy works and how it avoids the usual plastic cork woes?
Oswaldo

This:

will hopefully give you what you want with Ponsot himself explaining it.
A key issue for ensuring its performance is that specialist equipment is required for its insertion and failure to do it properly can cause [serious] problems.
 
The TCA gods listen, and they punish optimism. Within a few days of my post here, a 1999 Pernand-Vergelesses Ile de Vergelesses Delarche goes down the drain, hopelessly corked even to my relatively high threshold.
Arg!
CMM
 
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
The TCA gods listen, and they punish optimism. Within a few days of my post here, a 1999 Pernand-Vergelesses Ile de Vergelesses Delarche goes down the drain, hopelessly corked even to my relatively high threshold.
Arg!
CMM

Perhaps the better response is DIIAAMM!

Mark Lipton
 
I was opening wines for a group a few days ago, 3 out of 14 bottles were corked. Most of the wines were from the '80s and '90s, though, when things were really bad. A '96 Castell'in Villa Chianti, for one thing...
 
originally posted by Oliver McCrum:
I was opening wines for a group a few days ago, 3 out of 14 bottles were corked. Most of the wines were from the '80s and '90s, though, when things were really bad. A '96 Castell'in Villa Chianti, for one thing...

My sympathies, Oliver. No matter how many times it happens, it still hurts to open a corked bottle, especially if you know that the wine underneath the taint is a good one.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by nigel groundwater:
...with Ponsot himself explaining it.
Good to know that Ponsot also leaves wines in the trunk of his car, like the rest of us.

I marvel at the product placement for ScrewPull, though.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by nigel groundwater:
...with Ponsot himself explaining it.
Good to know that Ponsot also leaves wines in the trunk of his car, like the rest of us.

I marvel at the product placement for ScrewPull, though.

I brought back the literature with me, if you want to see it.
 
originally posted by .sasha:

I brought back the literature with me, if you want to see it.

i'd be curious.

my fucked by tca rate on wines from the famous cheese producing state to the west of me is, some two months into the year, hovering somewhere around 25%. the fatsink has gagged on a lot of potentially awesome shit. and while i suspect that i am more sensitive than some, in each case, the damage was of the colossal, humungous, "wtf? you decided to make a solera of this shit just to make a joke??" sort of thing...

in the same period, the rate in my much larger sample of dodgy swabian shit is 0%. which makes this one more anecdote in favor of the german corks less bad than they wuz story, at least.

as for ponsot, one time i opened 3 (three!) tca trashed bottles of cros parantoux in a row. it is far from the worst run i ever had, but the retrospective increase in the spoogeworthiness of the wines makes it notable. i drank something else, in the end,that night.

but, y'know, the more i think about this shit, the less i care to be dogmatic. maybe bogus-o-cork ponsot will last longer and stronger than teh average modern pope. or maybe it will turn into piss. i'm certainly willing to give it a try, but, fwiw, i'd probably rather buy cases of the shit under cork and be willing to shrug and reach once more for teh fatscrew when it turns out bad. thing is, it all depends on the price and the sample size they will give me.

in fact, to return to an ancient verse from the book of chubbiness that hasn't been aired for a while, isn't there another way of looking at this: teh corks is largely guaranteed to fail at a certain %age. and teh replacements is no more certain over time. why not just factor these risks into your valuation of your initial purchase? and communicate the value of these risks to your merchant or the growers that you work with.

it would beat the fucking self righteous whining about a world that isn't perfect. and it might even prompt folks into having a more serious relationship with teh hooch.

fb.
 
originally posted by richard slicker:

in fact, to return to an ancient verse from the book of chubbiness that hasn't been aired for a while, isn't there another way of looking at this: teh corks is largely guaranteed to fail at a certain %age. and teh replacements is no more certain over time. why not just factor these risks into your valuation of your initial purchase? and communicate the value of these risks to your merchant or the growers that you work with.

Harder to calculate over time than I used to think. My case of premoxed 2001 Nigl GV Privats as one example.

Will the new vintage under screwcap fail faster? Slower? When?

Hard to know.

TCA won't be in the calc, but I can't estimate the other variables.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by richard slicker:

in fact, to return to an ancient verse from the book of chubbiness that hasn't been aired for a while, isn't there another way of looking at this: teh corks is largely guaranteed to fail at a certain %age. and teh replacements is no more certain over time. why not just factor these risks into your valuation of your initial purchase? and communicate the value of these risks to your merchant or the growers that you work with.

Harder to calculate over time than I used to think. My case of premoxed 2001 Nigl GV Privats as one example.

Will the new vintage under screwcap fail faster? Slower? When?

Hard to know.

TCA won't be in the calc, but I can't estimate the other variables.

which makes you wish you had punted less on an unknown unknown, n'est ce pas?

i mean, those turn of the century austrians were far too expensive for the information available (and yeah, as you know, i bought some too).

shit. do i sound like teh plotster?

fb.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by richard slicker:

in fact, to return to an ancient verse from the book of chubbiness that hasn't been aired for a while, isn't there another way of looking at this: teh corks is largely guaranteed to fail at a certain %age. and teh replacements is no more certain over time. why not just factor these risks into your valuation of your initial purchase? and communicate the value of these risks to your merchant or the growers that you work with.

Harder to calculate over time than I used to think. My case of premoxed 2001 Nigl GV Privats as one example.

Will the new vintage under screwcap fail faster? Slower? When?

Hard to know.

TCA won't be in the calc, but I can't estimate the other variables.

Variability of oxygen transmission isn't talked about as much as it should be.
 
originally posted by Oliver McCrum:
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by richard slicker:

in fact, to return to an ancient verse from the book of chubbiness that hasn't been aired for a while, isn't there another way of looking at this: teh corks is largely guaranteed to fail at a certain %age. and teh replacements is no more certain over time. why not just factor these risks into your valuation of your initial purchase? and communicate the value of these risks to your merchant or the growers that you work with.

Harder to calculate over time than I used to think. My case of premoxed 2001 Nigl GV Privats as one example.

Will the new vintage under screwcap fail faster? Slower? When?

Hard to know.

TCA won't be in the calc, but I can't estimate the other variables.

Variability of oxygen transmission isn't talked about as much as it should be.
Nor is the apparent need for [some] of it hence the redesign of certain closures to facilitate it.

But that's not really the subject of the thread although no doubt I will be reminded that thread drift is no crime :)
 
originally posted by Oliver McCrum: Variability of oxygen transmission isn't talked about as much as it should be.

Oliver, Definitely a significant lapse...and perhaps of paramount importance!

. . . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by richard slicker:

as for ponsot, one time i opened 3 (three!) tca trashed bottles of cros parantoux in a row.
fb.

didn't know he made one

so one thing i asked ponsot about was irregular bottle necks, and he jumped all over it, essentially saying that his italian gadget wouldn't even fit properly in the first place unless the bottle was to specs, while the natural cork would expand to sort of compensate for the flaw

make of that what you will
 
originally posted by .sasha:

so one thing i asked ponsot about was irregular bottle necks, and he jumped all over it, essentially saying that his italian gadget wouldn't even fit properly in the first place unless the bottle was to specs, while the natural cork would expand to sort of compensate for the flaw

make of that what you will

i assume that means he is using the lalique/suckling 1000 points! bottles.

or else he is fucked.

fb.
 
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