Now I know that many of you do not share my disdain for corks in wine, and the resulting detectable and, even more disturbing, the sub-threshold levels of cork taint. In the vein of democracy, I kneel to Kim, the goddess of marketing, and put an equal amount of the Winemakers Pinot noir in both screwcap and under cork closures. It is a classic exercise in compromise. Now, if we could only get our representatives in Washington to do the same...
Anyhow, there is no guarantee that wines in cork-closed bottles are not tainted with TCA, or as we know it in the cellar- 2,4,6-trichloroanisole. I am going to steal yet another definition from the web, this time from Wikipedia. Here is their explanation of TCA and cork taint, which, though less entertaining than my take is much more succinct:
CORK TAINT can most accurately be described as "moldy" or "musty" or "earthy" or sometimes "medicinal" smell that masks or dominates the fruit aroma of wine and reduces the overall wine quality. The source may be one or more particular chemical compounds formed by a reaction between molds and chemicals.
Infected wines are said to be "corked" or "corky" and the contaminant often referred to as "cork taint", although there are many other possible sources besides corks for its presence in wine.
Molds may be originally present in raw cork bark or in wood used for barrels or barrel racks, tanks, scaffolding, walls, stairs, pallets, cardboard boxes, or other many other types of winery equipment or facilities. TCA can also can infect cork or wood that is in storage.
Regardless of the source or chemical identity, Cork Taint can impart a very unpleasant smell that, depending upon its severity, tends to dominate all other aroma characteristics of any wine it contaminates. The least offensive and most subtle sign of TCA is wine that has very little aroma at all. The Australian Wine Research Institute conducted experiments in early 2003, that demonstrated even a very low level of contamination, as little as one or two nanograms per litre, suppresses positive fruit aroma character in wine by as much as 50%.
I am now going to step away from my soap box...
Needless to say, it takes very little of the compound to ruin a perfectly good Pinot noir. Thus, we go to amazing extremes to insure that when you pick up a bottle of Anne Amie Pinot noir, we have done everything in our power to insure the corks we buy are as "clean" as possible. One of the major steps in this screening process is a "cork soak" where we sensorially inspect lots of cork from our suppliers. The attached video shows the cork soak screening. In this particular screening, out of ten bales of corks randomly pulled from different suppliers, only three were clean. Those clean cork bales were selected for the 2007 Willamette Valley (Winemakers) Pinot noir. So, for those of you, like Kim, that absolutely MUST hear the pop of a cork when you enjoy your wine, rest assured that the care we put into our wines goes well beyond that. It's in the packaging as well.
Cheers,
Thomas
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