A new experience with a corked wine -- for me -- mustiness.

2002 Penner-Ash Syrah Oregon. $40 at Endless Vines. The retailer's shelf talker described this wine as follows: "Dark black rich fruit with pepper spice. Dense ripe blackberry and plum on the palate, concentrated fruit riding on a core of smokey wood. A juicy mouthful."

I'm not reporting on all my corked wines experiences -- running at 9.8% on a 12 month rolling average basis tonight -- but this one was new in my experience. Usually I get the aroma and often a taste of TCA with a corked wine. I learned that aroma and taste from a sample of TCA several years ago.

Tonight, the aroma of this wine was restrained, but with fruit notes. I tasted a couple mouth fulls, didn't get any TCA, and then sipped for a few minutes with little pleasure. Odd, I thought, it's got a musty taste -- what the dickens is that? It took fifteen minutes for me to connect "musty" with TCA's distinctive aroma and taste. I've read about that "musty" taste -- a first for me. I wonder why I've never noticed it before?

Regards, Bob

I'm intrigued to know how you would describe the smell and taste of TCA. The reason I ask is that "musty" would be the first word that springs to mind if I were asked the same question.

and me. Maybe all that snow and ice affects those Canadians sense of smell Steve

and me. Maybe all that snow and ice affects those Canadians sense of smell Steve

Excuse me, Bob R is from the east coast and he ain`t Canadian!!!!! I am, LOL. You guys crack me up!!!!

Bob Parsons.
Edmonton/Alberta

You guys? South Africans you mean?

Something similar happened to me with a white wine. It was drinkable, albeit slightly off, but my wife swears it made my breath smell rank. More I drank the more I realized it and ended up pouring out a good portion of the bottle.

I started drinking wine seriously in 1995, and have kept fairly good notes ever since. I was confused about "corked wines", particularly after a tasting with a number of experienced wine lovers in New York City. This wine in particular made me wonder about the smell and taste of TCA:

4/20/98 Tuscany tasting.
1985 Fontodi Flaccianello Della Pieve VDT Tuscany Italy. [Label: “Pagus Flaccianus”.] Corked. 1*.
[P90, WS 91, $58, McArthurs, DC, 3/98.]

Bob: Consensus, a corked wine. A shame, because it had a bright, clear ruby red color. We also all agreed that the Fontodi Flaccianello was corked, but, frankly, I wasn’t entirely sure. Robin’s definition makes it clear that there can be a light corkiness; in addition to the beautiful color, I was able to get mild fruit and spice aromas, good fruit, spice and berry tastes, a very good mouth feel, a bit of earth, and that musty cardboard taste from this wine. Not pleasant, but I would really like to try another bottle of this wine again just out of curiosity.

Alan: Good weight. Corked, too bad.

Pat: Very dark but corked -- worth trying another bottle just from color.


I bought a set of samples of 12 wine flaws from Le Nez du Vin, and found that I was extraordinarily sensitive to the smell of TCA based on the sample in the kit. I tested my sensitivity against three other people in the NYC geek community who are very sensitive to corkiness -- I'm not in Lisa Allen's league -- who is? -- but nonetheless my sensitivity was confirmed.

For me, "mustiness" or "moldy" or "wet cardboard" doesn't describe the sharp, biting edge that I get from TCA. If it were music, "musty" would be a chord with several notes; "TCA" would be a single note.

My guess is that the TCA in this sample was just at the edge of my ability to perceive it, and that it was muted and a chord with many notes, rather than the sharpness I usually perceive.

I suggest you purchase a sample of TCA and see if you have the same experience. I sure wish there were an inexpensive test for TCA, so that differences in ability to detect odors wasn't so important in describing wine.

Regards, Bob

IFor me, "mustiness" or "moldy" or "wet cardboard" doesn't describe the sharp, biting edge that I get from TCA. If it were music, "musty" would be a chord with several notes; "TCA" would be a single note.

My guess is that the TCA in this sample was just at the edge of my ability to perceive it, and that it was muted and a chord with many notes, rather than the sharpness I usually perceive.

I suggest you purchase a sample of TCA and see if you have the same experience. I sure wish there were an inexpensive test for TCA, so that differences in ability to detect odors wasn't so important in describing wine.

OK. I hear what you are saying about mustiness. I think I agree, but if I were to use one word to describe the smell it would be "musty".

I do have the Nez du Vin Fault range, and find that I can smell the TCA as soon as I open the box. Or maybe that IS the cardboard....?

Do you have a dog, Bob? If so I would suggest training it with your Nez du Vin aroma. Spotting TCA should be a walk in the park for a dog. The real trick would be to detect it in a closed bottle.

"If so I would suggest training it with your Nez du Vin aroma. Spotting TCA should be a walk in the park for a dog. The real trick would be to detect it in a closed bottle."

I like that idea, Steve. I wonder if anyone has tried it.

Our present dog -- a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel -- has such a short attention span that training is out of the question. But Janet is getting a German Shepherd soon -- I'll try training.

If the TCA is in the cork, identifying corked bottles shouldn't be very difficult for a well trained dog. I wonder if anyone has tried your approach.

Incidentally, I searched my database of tasting notes. After I trained my nose , I found a few positive references to "musty" wines, and no negative ones. TCA and "musty" are normally two very different aromas and tastes in my current arsenal:

3/15/99 Mon 1993 Marchese Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga San Leonardo VDT di Vallagarina Trentino Italy. Deep purple red color; light hue; musty fruit aroma with hints of spice; intense berry and spice tastes, very acidic and with tannins hidden by the dominant tannins; medium mouth feel; medium long finish. 4*.

1998 Puzelat "Clos du Tue-Bœuf" "La Callière" Cheverny Loire Valley France. Gritty, strawberry and raspberry, dirty cranberries…man, this beef is a bummer. The dirt softens in the mouth, with some musty tobacco flavors, and a vegetarian finish. Or maybe it's just corked? Bad spot, man, to be after the wowzer Huet. [Note by Iverson] Pepper, fruit, musty, lovely. T4*.

NV Marietta Cellars Old Vine Red Lot Number Twenty Five Sonoma County California. 13.5% alcohol; $15 at Kings. Deep red/purple color; strong, pervasive fruit aroma with hints of black spice and a good chocolate overlay; very good fruit taste, quite intense and with an unusual depth; mild tannins and a bit more acidity than other Marietta Lots; medium mouth feel; fairly long finish with pleasant fruit, spice and chocolate notes. This would be an outstanding Marietta Lot – rivaling my favorite Lots Fifteen and Twenty Two except for the unusually high acidity and an odd musty aroma and taste – not corkiness – but a mustiness that blew off after about thirty minutes in the glass. Also, getting pricey, although Kings tends to be on the high side. Still, this is an old friend, still doing fine; my notes show I’ve enjoyed all of the Lots from Number Seven to Number Twenty Five, except Twenty One. 3*.

AFAIK no one has tried training dogs to recognise TCA. I have also suggested it on Another Board and nobody reported TCA-dogs past or present.

When you have your dog tuned into TCA, Bob, you could then start on the other aromas found in wine. It would be quite a party trick. Getting the dog to write a decent TN might be a bit more tricky.

Bob, to me, TCA is the smell of old, damp newspapers. As I've learned, I am quite tolerant of TCA and in retrospect I've have had many tainted wine that didn't bother me. Now that I connect that smell with TCA - they all bother me. I quess what I didn't know didn't matter.

Would anyone who thinks they find it difficult to detect TCA care to comment on whether they also find it difficult to notice the fruit scalping effect? If both go together, I guess being TCA-insensitive is a blessing. If not, then not.

Would anyone who thinks they find it difficult to detect TCA care to comment on whether they also find it difficult to notice the fruit scalping effect? If both go together, I guess being TCA-insensitive is a blessing. If not, then not.

Steve, I am not very sensitive to TCA. If it is a wine I know well (like Musar or Joguet Clos du Chêne Vert 1997) I am sure than when I find it less fruity than usual, it is corked. I routinely run such bottles by a friend of mine who is hyper sensitive to cork. Whenever I find that these bottles are less than normal in fruit, he finds them mildly corked.

The problem is that I tend to like wines that aren't overtly fruity and which are highly acidic. I am sure that some of wines have gone down my throat which I though fine because of my dual handicap of liking acid and no fruit + tolerance for TCA. This raises an interesting question: would I enjoy a slightly corked fruit bomb? I think I just might!

-O-

Steve, there's at least one dog trained to find TCA:

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But you can teach a new dog, which happens to boast a keen sense of smell, to detect 2, 4, 6-trichloroanisole (TCA), the nefariously odiferous compound responsible for tainting thousands of cork-sealed wines each year.

HighlightsMichelle Edwards has done just that. The winemaker at Napa's Cliff Lede Vineyards has given Miss Louisa Belle, her 83-pound, 2-year-old bloodhound with a "hyper" personality, a new purpose: sparing the Stags Leap vintner the preventable loss of small-production bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon, Claret and Sauvignon Blanc that can retail for up to $120.

"I was looking for something to feed her curiosity," Edwards said. "She's very stubborn. If you don't give her something to focus on, she can be very frustrating."

Edwards and her fiancé Daniel Fischl, an agricultural scientist and viticulturist who works for David Abreu Vineyard Management, already owned Lord Wensleydale Francis Wigglesworth, a male English bulldog and Truffles, a female French bulldog, when they adopted this daughter of a search-and-rescue dog from a breeder in Sebastopol, Calif.

Edwards began training the hound for her new job when the dog was about a year old. Over the course of several months, she treated corks with synthetic TCA and hid them in the yard of the Napa home she shares with Fischl. With the simple command, "Taint cork!" or "Inspect!" the bloodhound would spring into action, checking behind bushes and inside latticework, often chewing on the cork when she found it.

That's a pretty neat way to train Janet's new dog -- sound like it might be fun -- and maybe even Clive is up to the challenge.

The rest of the story is at

http://www.winesandvines.com/feature_aug_06_dog.html

Regards, Bob

Steve, there's at least one dog trained to find TCA:

Excellent. Thanks for that!

Besides TCA and TeCA there are other chemical compounds that can be present in a wine to make a wine appear to taste “moldy” or "musty". Other compounds such as guaiacol, geosmin, 2-methylisoborneol, octen-3-ol, and octen-3-one are also thought to contribute to this “fault”.

Salute