Corked wines data base - pie in the sky?

Hi guys,

I opened up a 1999 Château Marbuzet on Friday only to find that TCA had once again reared its ugly head.

I thought to myself: either this is a one-off thing, so just forget about it, or else there's a whole bunch of 1999 Marbuzet around the world that is defective.

Might it not be a good idea for people to share their experience?

"To what aim?", you may well ask.
Surely not to get your money back. But to prevent others from getting burned and to send out a warning signal to the wine trade and, of course, the producer.

Obviously, if 2 people have had the same experience as me, this is not statistically significant.
However, if a couple of dozen winelovers have come up against the same problem, it is.

I am hardly a computer geek, but I was wondering:
- is my idea worthwhile?
- would it be difficult to set up such a site?

Best regards,
Alex R.

[Robin Garr]

Interesting concept. I'm not sure I see the value in setting up a separate website, or a formal database, to record cork-tainted wines. It's already well established that cork taint afflicts a surprising percentage of wines, and that it's randomly distributed across all wines using natural cork. And when a winery has a particular problem, that seems to come out pretty quickly, too.

Robin,

Don't you think that somewhere along the line should assume responsibility for widespread (not isolated instance of) cork taint?

Best regards,
Alex R.

I can't see this happening. There is a white Burgundy premature oxidation wiki that's pretty efficient, but that differs in that its a small segment of the wine market, where there is intense interest in an unusual problem that seems rampant (and a small dedicated group that are the primary consumers of the product). For me I tend to run about 5% corked. I'm not going to go to a website specifically to record the 95% of wines that AREN'T corked, but that is the only way the database would work. If people only recorded the corked wines, it wouldn't really tell you anything. 4 corked bottles of a tiny garagiste might be significant, but 4 corked bottles of Gruaud-Larose or Pontet Canet probably wouldn't be.

I'd say the best bet for early warning system for detecting a possible TCA problem (whether a bad batch of corks or a systemic problem such as occured at Ducru-B in the late 80s or BV in late 90s) is the use of databases for all wines such as Cellartracker. As opposed to most TN websites, all the TNs (and reports of flawed bottles) are grouped under the particular vintage of the particular wine. If I saw 4 reports of corked bottles to 3 other TNs, I'd be wary re a wine.

Of course, then there's the issue of GIGO. One does get people who think cooked is corked, or that a corked bottle is "earthy."

Hi Dale,

>I'm not going to go to a website specifically to record the 95% of wines >that AREN'T corked, but that is the only way the database would work. If >people only recorded the corked wines, it wouldn't really tell you >anything.

I can't follow your reasoning here.
What it would tell me is if people have had bad experiences, and would help me, no?

>4 corked bottles of a tiny garagiste might be significant, but 4 corked >bottles of Gruaud-Larose or Pontet Canet probably wouldn't be.

If you had reports from a number of people, it seems reasonable to me that reports of 40 or 400 bottles of corked Gruad Larose or Pontet Canet would be useful.

As opposed to the Cellartracker site you spoke of, this would deal with complaints - or imagined complaints - with regard to one specific aspect. Two disgruntled consumers would not mean much. But twenty would, no?

>Of course, then there's the issue of GIGO. One does get people who >think cooked is corked, or that a corked bottle is "earthy."

What does GIGO stand for please?

Best regards,
Alex R.

Alex, I like your basic idea, but I'm afraid I'm with Dale on this one -- GIGO.

There is apparently no objective test for TCA, and wine tasters have widely varying sensitivities to the flaw.

I tend to be very sensitive to TCA, my wife Janet is even more sensitive to it, but sometimes I find it when she doesn't.

And some of my friends find no TCA when I'm sure it's there.

If there were a simple, reliable test, I would be all in favor of such a database.

Alex, GIGO is Garbage In, Garbage Out.

While I was the one who mentioned the GIGO factor, I don't think on itself the lack of consistent true understanding of TCA taint (positive or negative) is the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that a report for only the taint (even if one assumes that every reporter was accurate) gives no clear perspective. If every wine enthusiast in the world participated, would 400 reports of a problem be a sign of a problem? Well, maybe not if it was a wine that sold 40,000 cases of drink now wines.

The advantage of CT type issue is that it puts some perspective. 8 reports of a corked wine with 10 reports of good wine would scare me more than 48 reports of corked wine without any clue how many sound bottles were consumed.

Speaking of the GIGO factor, it also occurs to me that a problem-only database would be ripe for problems from a mischief maker. The owner of Ch. Snobby was rude to me? I'll put 8 reports of his corked 2000 online. It's certainly possible that similar stuff can happen with CT, but the nature of the system (one can see what other notes each participant contributed) makes such a vendetta less likely and more identifiable.

Putting aside the problem of detection levels (and I am fairly sensitive to TCA), I haven't found any nexus with my corked bottles--just a random 7-8%.

The closest I've come was a string of 3 straight corked d'Arenberg bottles over a 5 week period. I started a thread on it and all the responders never had a corked d'Arenberg.

I think the producers that wine lovers buy all try to use quality untainted corks, so the bad bottles are hit-or-miss. Of course you hear stories of certain producers that allegedly have very low level TCA problems throughout their whole set-up (Wine Spectator and Montelena and Pillar Rock) and maybe those issues need more exposure.

Dale,

You made a couple of valid points, although I still have difficulty relating to some of your criticisms.

GIGO? Was my report on the corked wine garbage? I wish you were here to taste the wine that's left in the bottle...
What of someone who *thinks* he has encountered cork taint, but it ain't that at all? There you have a valid point, however if a whole bunch of people think they've opened a corked wine, then it seems likely to me that this is the case. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

You wrote:

>If every wine enthusiast in the world participated, would 400 reports of a problem be a sign of a problem?

To me, the answer is clearly yes.

You raise the reasonable argument that 400 reports out of a total production of 4,000 cases is not the same as 400 reports on 40,000 cases. Granted.
Still, the fact that 400 people write in to lodge a specific complaint about *any* wine should - legitimately - be seen as a red flag.

You also wrote :

>Speaking of the GIGO factor, it also occurs to me that a problem-only database would be ripe for problems from a mischief maker. The owner of Ch. Snobby was rude to me? I'll put 8 reports of his corked 2000 online. It's certainly possible that similar stuff can happen with CT,

Sorry, I don't know what CT stands for.

My answer to this is: are there examles of similar vendattas such as you refer to on WLDG or any other wine forum?
Is such a thing really likely to happen?

The Internet is not outside the law.
Denigrating someone's wine is serious business.
But saying "hey, I think this baby has cork taint" can hardly be interpreted as vicious slander...
If so, then this would be the same for people who write about glaring flaws in wines on this forum or any other.

Best regards,
Alex R.

GIGO? Was my report on the corked wine garbage? I wish you were here to taste the wine that's left in the bottle....

Alex, while I'm pretty confident that you recognize cork taint when you smell it, my point was that I fairly regularly see notes on the internet where someone says "this was badly made wine, it smelled like moldy cardboard" or "this wine was corked, it tasted like old apple juice." It could corrupt the data. But, as I stated, the GIGO issue is less a factor to me than the issue of perspective.

.

You raise the reasonable argument that 400 reports out of a total production of 4,000 cases is not the same as 400 reports on 40,000 cases. Granted.
Still, the fact that 400 people write in to lodge a specific complaint about *any* wine should - legitimately - be seen as a red flag..

Well, not if a lot of people were using the database. Using the 5% rate for normal cork taint, one reasonably would expect 24,000 bottles of the 40K case wine to be faulty (without the wine being any worse than average). So if a little over 1% of wine drinkers contributed, 400 would be about right. What about Yellow Tail, which I believe sells about 5 million cases of their wine in US alone per year? One could expect 3 million faulty bottles if they use cork (Bob, do they?).

.

Sorry, I don't know what CT stands for..

I was referring to Cellartracker.

.

My answer to this is: are there examles of similar vendattas such as you refer to on WLDG or any other wine forum?
Is such a thing really likely to happen?.

Well, there's certainly a famous internet nutcase (oldtimers will guess her "handle" starts with R) who currently constantly posts on another forum slander re a couple of wineries. I know of at least one instance of a retailer using a false persona to post derogatory comments re another. And multiple instances of "boosterism." But its not a big problem, because in general these singleminded folks would stand out (especially in a real names forum such as this)- not so in a "complaint only " database, unless you made complicated registration, which would likely undermine your participation. And certainly outside of wine sites like Wikipedia have had real issues with malicious posts (or self-interested editing, if you read today's NYT). But, again, this is not the primary problem I see with the idea, just a random thought as I replied. The big issues are lack of perspective, and the huge number of participants it would take to make it likely that one actually identified a problem.

You know, if you think this would work, give it a shot. It's not hard to set up a website these days. But to make it effective, someone would have to set up some form of standardized format to make searches/entries standardized (I believe there are something like 1 million wines produced today - Cellartracker has more than 130,000 separate wines, and many of them are around in 30 or 40 vintages!). Have to make sure that folks don't mix up Marbuzet and Haut-Marbuzet, or Lagrange in St Julien with the Pomerol. That's a lot of work for a "one trick pony" website (as CT is an inventory/TN tool, there's more incentive for the population to work and enter wine). Because the biggest problem in getting folks motivated is that the vast majority of TCA taint is not an indication of a problem with that wine! I'd guess that systemic infection or bad batches of cork amount to no more than 1 or 2 % (at most) of TCA taint. So this seems like a lot of work (both for the person setting up the site and those posting ) to try and identify those wineries with a problem (beyond the problem that we KNOW infects a random sampling of bottles). Good luck!

"What about Yellow Tail, which I believe sells about 5 million cases of their wine in US alone per year? One could expect 3 million faulty bottles if they use cork (Bob, do they?)"

Synthetic plastic, a little tough to open. Screw caps would be better, I think.

Their FAQ has an interesting spin on the cork/screwcap business; I wonder why they are "not quite ready to go to screw caps yet" -- shades of jug wines, perhaps?:


Q: What's with the cork?

A: We've switched to synthetic corks for a number of reasons. First and foremost, we're not quite ready to go to screw caps just yet.

Fact is, there are a number of things that can go wrong with natural cork: like drying out and letting air in or even worse, they can give the wine a distinctive, musty aroma known as cork taint. And if you've ever been unlucky enough to have a bottle of wine that's been tainted by a bad cork (a.k.a. corked wine) you'll understand why we switched to synthetic. So while only 2-10% of wine with natural cork ends up 'corked,' that's 2-10% too many in our book.

Our goal at Casella Wines, the winery that makes [yellow tail] wines, is to deliver the best possible wine to your glass. And when it comes to delivering on that goal, especially all the way from Australia, we believe there are just some things that shouldn't be left to chance.

Interesting point, Bob. In a country where you can buy cholesterol and blood sugar testers in any discount drugstore, why can't we have TCA testers? Or are there?

Randy, the problem is the methodology used for those tests. ELISA (Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay) relies on having an antibody raised to the analyte in question. For biological molecules, that's easily accomplished and it might even be possible for TCA, but the structure of TCA might result in a lot of non-specific binding that could lead to a lot of false positives. The commercial labs that test wine for TCA use gas chromatography, a very reliable analytical technique that also works for finding evidence of substance abuse in urine samples but which requires an expensive instrument that isn't going to be easily converted to an over-the-counter detection system.

Just my chemical $0.02,
Mark Lipton

Dale,

I wrote:

>>Still, the fact that 400 people write in to lodge a specific complaint about *any* wine should - legitimately - be seen as a red flag..

To which you replied.

>Well, not if a lot of people were using the database.

I assume by this you mean "not if a the wine were consumed by huge numbers of people" i.e. there's a mammoth production.
For the example of YellowTail, perhaps you are right in a statistical sense.
But then again, you might mean that a lot of complaints (even if justified) could paint a false picture (statisticaly weighted).

We can agree that YellowTail is not the best example.
However, this is not the kind of wine I had in mind!!!

You then go on to say:

>Using the 5% rate for normal cork taint, one reasonably would expect 24,000 bottles of the 40K case wine to be faulty

Why accept fatalistically the "5% rate for normal cork taint"???

I don't.

I don't think it's reasonable at all.

Frankly, I'm mighty pissed off when a pricey bottle of wine has to go down the drain. And I don't think the people responsible for this deserve a free ride. In short, they should pay the piper: either refund the fautly merchandise (definitely the "pie in the sky" aspect of things cited in the header - although - any good retailer should refund a corked bottle, or restaurant replace it...) or lose sales for widespread incidence.
Furthermore, the producer should sue their cork supplier or underwrite some sort of insurance ***if*** cork taint is as inevitable as you say it is.

>, one reasonably would expect 24,000 bottles of the 40K case wine to be faulty

Not me, Dale.
Not in the 21st century.

I wrote:

>>My answer to this is: are there examles of similar vendattas such as you refer to on WLDG or any other wine forum?
Is such a thing really likely to happen?.

To which you replied.

>Well, there's certainly a famous internet nutcase (oldtimers will guess her "handle" starts with R) who currently constantly posts on another forum slander re a couple of wineries. I know of at least one instance of a retailer using a false persona to post derogatory comments re another.

So the answer is "it's possible, but unlikely".
Seems pretty much a faux problème to me.

You wrote:

> The big issues are lack of perspective, and the huge number of participants it would take to make it likely that one actually identified a problem.

An acceptable reply for YellowTail, but not for fine wine.

>You know, if you think this would work, give it a shot. It's not hard to set up a website these days. But to make it effective, someone would have to set up some form of standardized format

I know how to drive a car, but know virtually nothing about automotive mechanics. I'm pretty much the same with the Internet.
I sure wish I had the necessary skills...
However, the format you speak of doesn't need to be sophisticated at all.

>Because the biggest problem in getting folks motivated is that the vast majority of TCA taint is not an indication of a problem with that wine!

I do not understand this statement, which seems paradoxical.
If you mean "it's a problem with the cork, not the wine", the end result is nevertheless identical: undrinkable wine.
Obviously, isolated instances should not damn an estates' entire production. But a series of instances should serve as a warning to consumers.

Best regards,
Alex R.

Why accept fatalistically the "5% rate for normal cork taint"???
I don't.
I don't think it's reasonable at all.
Frankly, I'm mighty pissed off when a pricey bottle of wine has to go down the drain. And I don't think the people responsible for this deserve a free ride. In short, they should pay the piper: either refund the fautly merchandise (definitely the "pie in the sky" aspect of things cited in the header - although - any good retailer should refund a corked bottle, or restaurant replace it...) or lose sales for widespread incidence.
Furthermore, the producer should sue their cork supplier or underwrite some sort of insurance ***if*** cork taint is as inevitable as you say it is. .

Alex, I'm not fatalistic (but I am realistic, or try to be). Given the choice, I'll opt for Stelvin. But most makers do not offer wine in Stelvin (in Bordeaux, I believe Ch. d'Agassac offers a choice, but I know of no other Cru Bourgeois and no classified wines). Once I buy a wine finished with cork, I recognize there is a significant possibility of TCA. If I happen to open a bottle that is corked within a couple of days before I am revisiting retailer who sold it, I might return for refund. Otherwise I accept and move on (and agitate for other closures). As you LIVE in Bordeaux, if you run across another corked Marbuzet (or if you saved this one), why don't you return it and any remaining bottles to the estate? That's the only way they pay for the mistake (assuming there is a real problem, either with the batch of corks or the winery).

.

>, one reasonably would expect 24,000 bottles of the 40K case wine to be faulty
Not me, Dale.
Not in the 21st century. .

Well, 5% seems to be the accepted % of TCA for most of us, and when buying wines finished with cork being shocked at a 5% spoilage rate is illogical and unrealistic. Robin seems to believe the cork folks' claim that they have basically eliminated the problem, I don't trust them that much. We'll see with time.

I know how to drive a car, but know virtually nothing about automotive mechanics. I'm pretty much the same with the Internet.
I sure wish I had the necessary skills...
However, the format you speak of doesn't need to be sophisticated at all. .

I think you're underestimating how complicated it would be. To make this work, the database would have to be set up so the consumer would be able to quickly find the particular wine, make the report, and view the complaints. I just got a newsletter from Eric at Cellartracker last night, currently they have listed 357,000 wines from 34,000 producers. I figure 90% of those wines are cork-finished. That needs (a) some db processing power, (b) a consistent way of entering wines so they can be organized alphabetically (just looking at Bordeaux is it Agassac or d'Agassac, Domaine de Chevalier or Domaine de Chevalier, Le Bon Pasteur or Bon Pasteur, etc etc ) and (c) one hell of a lot of people reporting to make enough reports to make a difference. For the first two problems, maybe some of the computer geeks who post here might correct me that it would be easy, but I haven't seen anyone volunteering to set this up.

"Because the biggest problem in getting folks motivated is that the vast majority of TCA taint is not an indication of a problem with that wine! "

I do not understand this statement, which seems paradoxical.
If you mean "it's a problem with the cork, not the wine", the end result is nevertheless identical: undrinkable wine.
Obviously, isolated instances should not damn an estates' entire production. But a series of instances should serve as a warning to consumers.

Alex, I'm not sure why this seems so complicated. My point is that a "warning to consumers" is only helpful if there is actually a problem with that winery (as opposed to the whole problem of using corks). Add to that people are only likely to spend the time to make reports if they think there might be a problem with that wine. In last year or so offhand I can recall corked bottles of 1982 Bon Pasteur, 1983 Leoville Poyferre, 1975 Haut-Brion, 1994 Marqués de Tomares Rioja Reserva , 1982 Gaja San Lorenzo, 1996 Lynch Bages, 2002 Ogier La Rosine, 2004 Dutour "La Roche" Pouilly-Fuisse , 1998 J.J. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese. Others' experiences on CT don't seem to lead to idea that any of these are likely to be affected by TCA more than the norm ( I also had a corked 1999 BV "Rutherford" Cabernet Sauvignon , but we all knew re that problem). If 99% of the time the problem isn't indicative of anything unusual that can be attributed to that bottling, why would I spend time entering it in a database, knowing for it to have ANY significance thousands of others would have to do the same?

Let's look at your example. While in general Bordeaux is definitely overrepresented in CT tasting notes, there is exactly one note on the 1999 Marbuzet (not corked) out of 360,000 notes posted. There are no notes on that wine on either the old or new WLDG (with tens of thousands of notes). To get any kind of significant response that is more significant than CT or WLDG would need a huge groundswell of people willing to spend time to go to your database to record each wine they tried that was corked, knowing full well that 99% of the time it was just the luck of the cork draw. Considering I haven't seen one positive response here (a gathering place for the wine geeky!) it's very hard to believe that one would get that kind of response.

Your original question was is the idea worthwhile and would it be difficult to set up such a site. My answer to the latter is yes it would be difficult; my answer to the former is it might be worthwhile if you could get hundreds of thousands to participate (which will NOT happen), and even then it would be of dubious use. By the time a pattern did emerge a la BV, Ducru, etc most of the wines are sold and gone.

[Robin Garr]

Robin seems to believe the cork folks' claim that they have basically eliminated the problem, I don't trust them that much. We'll see with time.

Ahem ... make that "one large cork producer," Dale. Amorim has presented compelling testimony to support their claim to have reduced the incidence of TCA taint in their natural corks to <i>near</i> zero and to have eliminated it from what they call "technical corks," with twin ends of treated natural cork protecting an agglomerated core.

Amorim is the largest and arguably the leading cork producer, but I've never made the claim that the entire Portuguese cork industry has followed Amorim's lead. Indeed, there are compelling reasons why it won't, mainly lying in the high cost of the level of quality control and capital investment needed. As long as there are plenty of wine producers who'd rather cut this corner to save costs, there will be plenty of cork producers to serve them.

Why doesn't Amorim work with its winery clients to publish a "guaranteed taint free" label on the bottles? Good question. I couldn't get an answer. But my guess is that in the small world of Portuguese cork, they'd rather negotiate than start World War III; and I'd also surmise that a lot of producers who don't want to invest in taint-free cork in all their wines aren't about to start labeling <i>some</i> of their portfolio.

Short story, though: Please note that I've never suggested that the cork industry has eliminated the threat of TCA; only that the largest and richest company, under the management of a new generation, has recognized the problem, admits that there IS a problem, and is willing to spend more money on R&D than it spends on public relations.

Dale,

>As you LIVE in Bordeaux, if you run across another corked Marbuzet (or if you saved this one), why don't you return it and any remaining bottles to the estate?

Enjoying variety in my cellar, I rarely buy in case lots. Therefore I only had one bottle of that wine...
So, I cannot know if the problem was a fluke or not.
Therein lies the dilemma...

>Well, 5% seems to be the accepted % of TCA for most of us

I don't doubt that this is the view in the US today.
But I disagree with it. Completely.
It's not the percentage - because none of us can know what that is - but the "acceptability" of it all, and the resignation you reflect.
Such a view is even more surprising coming from a country with a "can do" attitude, a high level of technology, and a strong tradition of consumerism.

>and when buying wines finished with cork being shocked at a 5% spoilage rate is illogical and unrealistic.

Only if you are defeatist to begin with, and don't care about getting your money's worth.

>Robin seems to believe the cork folks' claim that they have basically eliminated the problem, I don't trust them that much. We'll see with time.

I see that Robin has answered that point.
In any event, the cork producers have got off pretty (expletive deleted) lightly for all they've done!

>I think you're underestimating how complicated it would be.

Maybe so

>That needs (a) some db processing power

As I said, this unfortunatley goes over my head.

>(b) a consistent way of entering wines so they can be organized alphabetically (just looking at Bordeaux is it Agassac or d'Agassac, Domaine de Chevalier or Domaine de Chevalier, Le Bon Pasteur or Bon Pasteur, etc etc )

Coming up with a way of entering names does not seem like a major stumbling block...

(>c) one hell of a lot of people reporting to make enough reports to make a difference.

What amounts to "a hell of a lot of people"?
I disagree with the numbers you bandy about.

> My point is that a "warning to consumers" is only helpful if there is actually a problem with that winery (as opposed to the whole problem of using corks).

Reality check: selling wine with tainted corks is a problem for any winery.
It is NOT NORMAL.
The fact that this can be glossed is most worrying...
In fact, shipping 5 bottles out of every 100 that are unfit to drink is a HUGE problem. Not a run-of-the-mill occurence.
We well and truly part company on this one!

What if your car were one of "5% of bad cars produced that year by Toyota/Ford/Renault"?
Would you find it normal to cave in and put up with that?

Isn't cork production an industry too?
Why are you so indulgent with their shortcomings?

>In last year or so offhand I can recall corked bottles of 1982 Bon Pasteur, 1983 Leoville Poyferre, 1975 Haut-Brion, 1994 Marqués de Tomares Rioja Reserva , 1982 Gaja San Lorenzo, 1996 Lynch Bages, 2002 Ogier La Rosine, 2004 Dutour "La Roche" Pouilly-Fuisse , 1998 J.J. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese.

We all tend to be more tolerant with old wine.
But wine from the 2004 vintage is still out there on the shelves.
You shrug your shoulders at this. Not me. Somebody should be notified and assume responsiblity for this.
Of course, where the buck *should* stop is with the cork producers.
But it doesn't because of urban myths that they don't have to do a good job, that "nothing can be done to eliminate TCA contamination".

To which I say: poppycock (original word has been replaced).

>If 99% of the time the problem isn't indicative of anything unusual that can be attributed to that bottling,

Why have we gone from 95% to 99%?

>why would I spend time entering it in a database, knowing for it to have ANY significance thousands of others would have to do the same?

"Thousands" of others?
That is a huge exaggeration.
Whereas you had an argument with YellowTail, it falls apart when referring to a Clos de Vougeot.

>Let's look at your example. While in general Bordeaux is definitely overrepresented in CT tasting notes, there is exactly one note on the 1999 Marbuzet (not corked) out of 360,000 notes posted. There are no notes on that wine on either the old or new WLDG (with tens of thousands of notes). To get any kind of significant response that is more significant than CT or WLDG would need a huge groundswell of people

Sure, one or two people would mean little. But what is a "significant" response? What constitutes a "groundswell"?
Heck, you post your tasting notes all the time. I'm sure *one* of the reasons is so that people will avoid pitfalls or, conversely, become aware of wines that are well worthwhile (otherwise, why would you post?).
Anyway, that's the way I take your notes, Dale, and I've enjoyed your them for years.
One doesn't need a "groundswell" of people to know which way the wind is blowing.
If you comment on a wine and "just" five people write in to confirm your good (or bad) impressions, that goes a long way towards making me form an opinion about a wine I've never had.

>Considering I haven't seen one positive response here (a gathering place for the wine geeky!) it's very hard to believe that one would get that kind of response.

You have spent so much energy knocking my idea, I think people are just leaving us disagree and not taking sides...

>Your original question was is the idea worthwhile and would it be difficult to set up such a site. My answer to the latter is yes it would be difficult; my answer to the former is it might be worthwhile if you could get hundreds of thousands to participate

"Hundreds of thousands of people"...
No, of course not!
No thread on this forum has gone anywhere near that sort of participation, and yet there is much to be learned from many of them.

Best regards,
Alex R.

Robin,
thanks for correction. I have to wonder re Amorin's business sense if they are willing to spend money developing this, and then aren't willing to provide maybe a little sticker ("sealed with Amorin taint-free corks") to their customers. While I'd need more independent research to back their claims, just the fact they're making an effort would make that sticker a plus in my view, and therefore offer a wine producer a marketing reason to spend the extra money.

Alex,
where to begin? I am not defeatist or complacent about cork, and am far from a fan. I have (mostly jokingly) said while I opposed the war on Irag I'd support an invasion of Portugal. In polls I've always made it clear that I'd consider alternative closures (the only thing that would really scare the cork producers). I've told multiple wine producers I'd be happy to buy wines under screwcap, and have tried (when possible) to return tainted bottles. Supposedly retailers then get credit from wholesalers, who get credit from importers/distributors, who get credit from winery. But I doubt it gets that far. While you on the other hand COULD return to the folks who chose to use cork as a seal, at least at Marbuzet.

I'm not against the idea of doing something about TCA issues, I just think this particular database idea is impractical and illogical. Let's put it in the simplest terms possible:

A database to identify problems only works if it shows a problem that is beyond the ordinary "luck of the draw." We all know cork taints some wine, value would only come if there was evidence that a particular wine is tainted more often (or never).

At least prior to Amorin's new corks, about 5% of corks contaminated wine on a fairly random basis. The cork industry conceded 2-3%, some tasters claim 8-10%, I'm pretty comfortable with the idea of 5%. No wine producer can stop this, if you choose to seal with cork a certain percentage will be tainted. In Bordeaux that means Latour, Haut-Brion, Lafite, Mouton, Margaux, LLC, Angelus, Lynch-Bages, Leoville-Barton, etc etc etc all the way down to petite chateaux. No one who uses cork is immune. My posting a notice re the '96 Lynch-Bages would not really provide any info, as I'm pretty damn certain it was a random bad cork (I've had the wine at least 10-15 times before, no problems, and probably have read 30 notes on it).

A small percentage (probably 1% or less, that was my 99% figure) of cases of TCA taint are either based on winery hygiene issues, or particulary bad batches of cork. These are the only wines where the database would provide any utility. It's only useful info if one wine seemed to have far more incidents of TCA than is statistically likely.

I do post notes here and on AFW on pretty much every wine I try, and that includes noting when something is corked. If it is a serious wine from my cellar, I have entered it in Cellartracker, and if corked I click on Spoiled/Tainted and write corked, and it shows up in the notes there. If a wine had systemic taint, I'd assume it would eventually show up. That seems far more useful to me than a dedicated database,

I'm sure if there is someone out there who thinks as you do that this database is a good idea, they'll chime in. I'm certainly not that intimidating.

Amorim has presented compelling testimony to support their claim to have reduced the incidence of TCA taint in their natural corks to <i>near</i> zero and to have eliminated it from what they call "technical corks," with twin ends of treated natural cork protecting an agglomerated core.

Robin, I seriously doubt the latter claim. Lenz Moser of Austria — one of the largest wine producers over here — uses what we call "twin-top corks", agglomerated cores with natural disks at the end.

I don't know the provenance of these twin-top corks, but Amorim being the largest producer and Lenz Moser one of Austria's largest buyers, chances are high that they come from Amorim.

As a matter of fact, I had more than one clearly TCA affected wine from bottles stoppered with these corks within the last 12 months.

The only corks that definitely are proven to be TCA-free are DIAM agglomerate corks from Oénéo-Sabaté, the world's second largest cork producer. Oénéo-Sabaté gives a five year warranty against TCA taint and sporadic oxidation.

Dale,

This will be my last post on this subject, because it seems to have become a little sterile.

As always in discussions, if you can't agree on the premises, then you are sure not to agree on any of the extrapolations.

I strongly feel that the "luck of the draw" as you describe it is unacceptable and the sign of a certain brainwashing (this is not referring to you personally BTW).

While you prefer other types of closures, you see a 5% loss (a figure evidently pulled from a hat) for corked wines as par for the course, and don't bat an eyelid at being screwed.

The lack of logic you attribute to me, I attribute to you, so we can progress no further.

>I'm pretty comfortable with the idea of 5%.

I am not, and find that anyone who feels at you has let themself in for an unnecessary and expensive ride...

I sincerely hope such resignation will appear antiquated before long ("remember when people would write in and say they were OK with the idea of losing 5% of all their wine to fautly corks?").

>A small percentage (probably 1% or less, that was my 99% figure) of cases of TCA taint are either based on winery hygiene issues, or particulary bad batches of cork. These are the only wines where the database would provide any utility.

Where does this new percentage come from???

And even if it were true, the cause of the tainted cork is the producer's problem to identify and cope with. It is not the consumer's concern.
The result is what matters to him.
The producer is legally responsible for shoddy merchandise he has passed on to the consumer.
How you could think otherwise just floors me.

Your opposition to my database idea has obviously been corrupted by your belief that cork taint is a normal thing to encounter.
And mentioning the need for "many thousands" of people to contribute to it was just plain ridiculous.

Your stance here doesn't really hold much water.
Perhaps you have a lot more money to spend than I do, which would explain your insouciance with regard to stuff you buy, but have to throw away.
Easy come, easy go...

Best regards,
Alex R.

Alex,

sorry to contradict you, but I guess you are constantly misunderstanding Dale.

When he says he is "pretty comfortable" with the 5% cork taint figure he says that he is comfortable with his 5% estimate, given the fact that it fits comfortably between the 2 to 3% figure the cork industry admits and the 8 to 10% figure experienced tasters reports. I no way is he happy with that taint rate!

You don't accept the 5% figure, but you don't say whether your estimate is higher or lower.

Incidentally, the highest taint rates we encounter are at our annual "Bordeaux 10 Years After" tastings, regrouping 60 to 100 wines running from better bourgeois to super seconds and occasionally one or the other premier. The cork taint rate runs between 20 and 40(!) percent.

I know this is difficult to believe, but we have one or two extremely sensitive tasters in our tasting panel. If any taint suspicion is outed by any panel member, the back-up bottle is immediately opened side by side. The back-up bottle shares the provenance, 80 to 90% of the wines coming directly from the château.

Never ever did the back-up bottle taste the same as the first one. In 95% of the cases it was better confirming the original suspicion of a cork taint. In 5% it either tasted worse (definitely tainted) or different without being better or worse.

The same procedure, btw, is applied to all tastings we do. All our tastings combined — 3.000 to 4.000 wines a year I do for "Vinaria" and "A la Carte" magazines and the wine part of "A la Carte" Austrian restaurant guide — give a figure between 10 and 20% of cork taint, random oxidation or unacceptable bottle variation due to the cork.

Alex,
apparently you couldn't read what I wrote. I'm not happy with TCA taint. I just fail to see any way this database would provide useful information (unless it had massive input). I'd happily support an anti-taint/pro-consumer idea that actually DID something. Returning the wine to a producer, pressure to switch closures, etc provide pressure. This database wouldn't.

If you apparently think that cork taint for the most part ISN'T random (and if you don't think that, what the hell would a database accomplish?!?!), please let me know the Bordeaux producer who claims that their cork-finished wines has no cork taint. That would be a great selling point if they could verify it. But I don't know of a single prominent Bdx wine (classified or CruB) that I haven't run across either personal corked bottles or friends' TCA tragedies.

The 5% figure is about as close to a consensus as I can come up with as to the danger of random TCA taint. If you research this site or the old WLDG (or for that matter virtually ANY wine discussion group) you will find dozens- nope, hundreds - of polls and discussions about this. There are always a few persons who say "cork taint is no big thing, I've only had 2 tainted bottles in 20 years" (I once sat beside one of these folks at an offline while he happily quaffed a very very very corked wine). Clearly totally insensitive. APCOR used to claim 1%, but think they finally admitted to 2%. Some very sensitive people claim as high as 10-12%. A WS test of about 3,000 different bottles showed 7%. But the vast majority of people fall into the 3-7% area. I personally am probably less than average sensitivity, but hit 3-4% at home, but often am at offlines where a strangely mute wine is declared corked by a sensitive person, and if I really concentrate most of the time I get it. So I think 5% isn't a bad estimate.

I indeed did pull the 1% figure out of a hat. It's probably way too high, as I could probably count the number of confirmed cases of winery taint on my fingers.

My point isn't that TCA isn't a problem, it's that this database would do NOTHING. Capisce?

added on edit:
Michael, thanks for the input. I was slowly typing my response (between helping Betsy with some dinner prep) and didn't see your response until after I posted. And indeed you correctly parsed my use of the term "pretty comfortable." Perhaps you should be the interpreter!