Corked Champagne?

[David M. Bueker]

I have been satisfied with the DIAM so far, but have not had a large enough sample of wines using it as a closure to be completely comfortable.

Sometimes the wrinkle is 'how do you define 'TCA-free'?'

Some of the cork people define it was 2 ppt or less. My threshold is 2 ppt....

Oliver wrote; My threshold is 2 ppt....

Is this your “threshold” for TCA and all related compounds and for all types and styles of wines?

Amorin has testing devices that can detect .5 ng/L (.5 ppt) of TCA. If during screening a test sample of a batch or lot has 2 ppt (or more) of TCA the entire batch or lot goes through a more “extensive-cleaning” process to get (the test samples) at 2 ppt (or below). Even if the cork manufacturers could get it down to “zero” this will not get rid of TCA taint in wine.
Back in January of 2011, Wines and Vines Magazine reported that in the summer of 2010 Bordeaux had an “unusual” amount of TCA tainted wines and this is prior to any wine “seeing” a cork. Both a TCA-tainted oak barrel and cork could be a big problem for a winery. (TCA-tainted oaks barrel a bigger problem because now hundreds of bottles of wine are now affected, but hopefully it is detected and none of these bottles reach the market. A “TCA-contaminated” winery a bigger problem-burn it down and start all over). Is it possible because of the way these components function, corks allowing a very small amount of ingress into a bottle as the wine bottle ages; and oak barrels with their “natural” micro-ox as the wine bulk ages, could TCA molecules from the surrounding area where the bottle of wine and oak barrel is stored possible be allowed “access” to the wine and possible tainting it?

http://www.winesandvines.com/template.c ... tent=82313

Salute

Victor,

non-cork TCA contamination exists, but it's a red herring; the vast majority of bottles that suffer from corkiness get that way from the closure. Nothing in the article you mention says otherwise.

Non-cork TCA contamination exists, but it's a red herring

As “wine geeks” as well as consumers we can only pray that all “non cork” TCA tainted wine is detected “early” enough and hopefully doesn’t see the inside of a bottle (and sent to the distillers instead). But in the case of a bottled wine that is TCA tainted, yes it very easy to blame the closure, even tough it might be only the “cause” (because it does what it naturally does or engineered to do, by man or nature) and not necessarily (in some cases might not be) the “source” of the problem. I think Patterson makes it clear even though a barrel or cork for that matter, even if it is “guaranteed TCA-free”, there is still a chance that the wine can still become TCA-tainted (because of the “natural porosity” of these two components).

Salute