WTN: The Tree Bark Strikes Again (Corked Burgundy)

1999 Domaine Camus-Bruchon Pommard Les Arvelets

I was really looking forward to trying this, too. Wet cardboard. I am not cork sensitive, and the corky smell came and went over the evening. Plus, this wine had enough power and rich dark fruit that it was almost good and drinkable despite the cork taint. And, crazily enough, we kept re-trying it just ot make sure. It's kind of hard to return an empty bottle for credit.

1999 Domaine Camus-Bruchon Pommard Les Arvelets

I was really looking forward to trying this, too. Wet cardboard. I am not cork sensitive, and the corky smell came and went over the evening. Plus, this wine had enough power and rich dark fruit that it was almost good and drinkable despite the cork taint. And, crazily enough, we kept re-trying it just ot make sure. It's kind of hard to return an empty bottle for credit.

Now, now, Brian. Have you ever thought that whole corkiness thing was just all in your mind, something you imagined? And besides, even if it was, aren't you willing to pay that price to maintain the romanticism of the wine and the cork?

Those kinds of cork tainted wines are the second worse kind, Brian. The worst kinds are the ones where the taint itself is not fully evident, but where it has totally suppressed all the fruit and vitality of the wine; where you can't.quite.pin.it.down and you blame the wine or the winemaker for what you think is a bad bottle of wine---when it's not the wine that's bad, but the cork that stoppered the bottle.

But here you have the most tantalizing kind of cork taint, the kind that comes and goes, giving you that alluring promise---then snatching it away, and leaving you without.

Bummer.

But then it's probably all in your imagination anyway.

well...that is the problem. I am not real cork sensitive, so you wonder "Oh no...what am I smelling." Other people agreed, though, that it was corked.

I know exactly what you mean about the "no taint but dead wine" sydrome. One of my favorite Napa producers (William Harrison) had a run of two or three bottles which were just dead...mute. These wines are powerful enough (in a good way!) that one did not taste the cork taint very strongly. But...given what we know WH wines are supposed to taste like....and it was just there.

I do most of my imbibing at WineStyles, so I often forget to wsnatch the bottle out of the recycling bin to get credited.