Wine

[Dave Bradley]

Whay does wine cork? what does it taste like when its is corked? and why is a restaurant obliged to replce a bottle if it is- can they avoid it corking by storing properly etc?

[Pinotage]

A wine which is 'corked' is contaminated by an chemical in the cork, this can be detected by tasting. At the worse the wine taste foul, like damp cardboard, at its least offensive the wine is dull, fruit flavours are suppressed.

The chemical is known as TCA (short for trichloranisole), and the tiniest amount is detectable by taste, e.g. one drop in a swimming pool can be tasted.

Between 5 & 6% of wines closed with a cork is affected.

 

If you detect a 'corked' wine, take it back to the shop for a refund. In a restaurant you are invited to taste the wine to see if it is bad. If it is, they will replace it. Once you recognise what 'corkiness' is it becomes easier to detect it. Many wines you have had in the past and think you do not like may be because they were corked.

Storage is not an issue - the infection is in the cork when it was inserted in the bottle.

 

This is why there is a move towards plastic 'cork's and screwcaps.

 

'Corkiness' is not the only wine fault you may encounter; if th ewine is cloudy, smells off or tastes off, reject it. When you taste a different bottle of the same wine the difference is obvious.

 

Don't worry about rejecting a wine in a restaurant; they can return it to their supplier, and anyway you are paying a massive markup - usually 3 times or more retail price, they still make money even if they don't return the bottle.

[Bangkok]

The only issue I have with the excellent answer above is that storage can affect the wine.  Storage upright, or too hot, or in bright light can damage the wine, particularly if you are storing the wine whilst it is supposed to be improving.

The first time I rejected a wine in a restraurant the wine waiter told be there was nothing wrong with it.  As it was very expensive and I was with a client, I stood by what I said and with very ill grace they replaced it.  Before it was replaced, the client tasted it.  The client gave me more business, the restraurant was not used again.

[Pinotage]

Bangkok is 100% correct that bad storage can damage wine, but thats a different issue as  the question was whether corkiness can be avoided by correct storage, and it can not.

[Tony Monero]

If you smell the cork after opening you can tell if a wine is corked. If it is OK the cork will smell of wine, if it is corked it will smell as pinotage says like damp musky cardboard. This is why in some restaurants the sommelier will smell the cork before he pours the tasting glass.

[Pinotage]

Smelling the cork is not an infallible way of detecting TCA in wine.

 

The ritual of presenting the cork is to allow the taster to check the cork's condition and the name/vintage printed on it, to show it matches the label on the wine. I.e. in case some one has slapped expensive wine labels on some plonk.

 

Very rarely happens these days, and shouldn't be an issue in a respectable restaurant. But there was an incident this year where the owner of South Africa's Kanonkop winery met a man who complained that the flagship Paul Saur wine wasn't up to standard. On checking it turned out that fraudsters had stuck forged labels on the winery's cheap Kadette wine

[Gef]

Just to point out that the trichloroanisole is produced by a fungus which infects the bark of the tree from which the cork is made.