What's Going On in the World of French Wines

Last night I opened up a bottle of wine and discovered that, much to my dismay, it was corked. What exactly does corked mean, you might ask? Well, cork stoppers come from cork trees – essentially it is a piece of tree bark. While cork is a pretty amazing substance – it is very light, elastic and durable – it does have the unfortunate problem of occasionally being affected by something called 2,4,6-trichloroanisole or TCA for short. TCA occurs when a chlorine compound reacts with mold in the presence of moisture. When TCA is present in the cork, alcohol acts as a solvent so that the TCA is pulled into the wine. The result isn’t anything that will hurt you, but it will make the wine smell a bit like a musty cardboard box that has been left out in the rain. TCA can be found in a lot of different places – not just in corks. I sometimes notice it in soda when the lines of the soda machine haven’t been cleaned properly or in bags of baby carrots (plastic can harbor TCA too) and it can sometimes even be found in wood or in barrels in buildings (such as wineries).

People vary in their sensitivity to TCA and the levels that can be found in corked wines can be different too. Sometimes a wine will smell like that cardboard box and other times it will just seem like the fruit is very flat and dull. The issue of corked wine has been a hot topic within the wine industry over the last 15 years or so. Cork producers have yet to come up with a way to completely eradicate cork taint (TCA) and some wines seem to have more problems with TCA than others. Light, fragrant whites for instance tend to show taint more clearly than heavier red wines.

The details of the wine that I had last night aren’t really important – TCA doesn’t discriminate and it can happen to almost any wine regardless of price, origin, color or style. The reason that I wanted to spend some time discussing it today is two-fold. First off, I think it is important that wine drinkers are aware of different factors that can affect the taste of wine. You, the wine drinker, need to be informed about what to do if you get a bottle of wine that has been affected by TCA (return it to the store where you bought it if possible or if you are at a restaurant, tell your waiter/waitress). Secondly, I think that it is also essential that wine drinkers today understand why you will find a wide range of closures on wine bottles.

This last reason is extremely important. Packaging is a pretty interesting aspect of wine today. Although cork and glass have been used for wine since the late 16th century, today’s wines (in addition to glass) could also be put into tetrapaks, kegs, cans, PET bottles or bladder packs. If a producer doesn’t want to use a natural cork, he or she could choose a screw cap, a technical cork (made by mixing cork flour and a synthetic component), an agglomerate cork or a synthetic cork. Within this last category of synthetics, there are a number of different synthetic corks available on the market, some are made of hard plastic and others are softer with a spongy middle surrounded by a harder skin. All of these different types of closures and containers have some advantages and disadvantages, something we will discuss in a second post on this topic. The most important thing to remember though is that you shouldn’t judge a wine by its package – many producers are experimenting with wine packaging choices today. It used to be that wine drinkers associated screw caps with low-end, cheap wine. That is no longer the case these days.

I don’t hold it against the wine I opened last night that it was corked, although it does always make me pretty sad when it happens. But it also reminds me that every experience with wine has the potential to be a learning experience and I find that pretty exciting.