As far as I am concerned, I will not use the CORK TASTE description again to classify a defective wine with TCA because the cork stopper is not always to blame, writes Miguel Matos Chaves

The cork stopper is (not always) to blame!

Without wanting to take sides or positions, but as a Portuguese and a supporter of one of our products, namely, cork, I think there is some interest in sharing what happened during my participation (along with some other Portuguese) in the jury of the International Wine Challenge (IWC) held in London during May this year.

The IWC is one of the most important and prestigious international contests of assessment and classification via blind tasting of all types of wines produced on the planet. The jury consists of a highly diversified panel of qualified tasters of various nationalities, where one can find from simple wine enthusiasts, buyers, restaurant chain and supermarket representatives, speciality shop owners to producers, wine waiters, wine experts and “Masters of Wine”.

The facts occurred on the penultimate day of the tasting when only wine tasting designated as “medal worthy” remained, that is, wines that a panel of tasters had previously classified as potentially medal-worthy, which thus proceeded to the second round of tasting and in whose phase we found ourselves.

The panel of tasters at the tasting table at issue consisted of a Super Jury and three judges. During one of the “flights” (term used to define a tot of tasting wines) in the morning, one of the judges quickly frowned his forehead as he tasted a wine and let out a sign of disapproval, stating that the wine was flawed by cork taste. He immediately gave it to the Super Jury to taste, who at the time was performing head waiter duties. He nodded after analysing it as a sign of agreement with his tasting colleague. Case closed.

This bottle was going to be declared defective as required by the rules of the contest and the cause of the defect that would be entered in the contest's statistics was the cork stopper that had conferred it with the odour and cork taste. A new bottle of the same wine would be opened and we would continue with the tasting.

It was then that we realised that the bottle at issue had a particularity… the top of the glass bottleneck had the scuff marking characteristic of bottles sealed with an aluminium cap. The sealant of the defective bottle was not a cork stopper, but rather an aluminium cap (note: bottles are brought to the table already opened).

The defect identified probably resulted from contamination by 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole (TCA) or another compound of that family, whose source of contamination could not, however, be the cork stopper. My purpose is not to discuss the sources of TCA contamination but merely to report an instance where, if the bottleneck were different, the blame of the defect would be assigned to the cork stopper. Moreover, as I said before and I now emphasise, the cork stopper would have been erroneously entered in the contest's statistics as the cause of this particular defect.

As an exercise of reflection, we can just imagine how often the blame of defective wines with odour or cork taste are unjustly assigned to the cork stopper in restaurants, bars, contests, fares and suppers of friends throughout this world or simply at our home. It cannot defend itself unless in cases such as these where the defect is present, but the sealant is not of cork.

As far as I am concerned, I will not use the CORK TASTE description again to classify a defective wine with TCA because the cork stopper is not always to blame.

 

Miguel Matos Chaves

Viticulturist / Winemaker