Corked Neocork?

"Corked?" I asked, seeking confirmation from my wife. "Corked," she confirms, so I dump our musty, nasty bottle of 2005 Catherine & Pierre Breton Bourgueil Les Galichets and open another. And then the cartoon lightbulb pops on over my head. The wine was sealed with a Neocork, so how could it be corked unless the TCA came from a barrel or the winery? The first four bottles were delicious and so is the sixth.

And if the TCA in the fifth bottle came from barrels or winery, they why weren't the other bottles corked?

[David M. Bueker]

Some other problem with the fake cork masquerading as TCA?

Well, maybe it's something else, but if it smells like TCA, tastes like TCA, kills the fruit like TCA, and cuts off the finish like TCA, what could be other than TCA? I'm stumped. A few years ago I took a one-day course in wine faults and have forgotten most of what I learned, but what I do recall is that nothing smelled or tasted like TCA except TCA.

But my out of date copy of The Oxford Companion to Wine says that "moulds growing on unbleached corks can still generate a corked aroma and taste which are due to compounds other than TCA." I wonder if molds can grow on Neocork and do the same thing.

Clint, IIRC there are a number of chemicals related to TCA, which have a similar effect. Some of these are more likely to have sources other than cork. For example, here's something about TBA:
http://www.portocork.com/docs/tba_swiss ... ummary.pdf
See also the "Corky" entry here:
http://www.wine-pages.com/guests/tom/taste5.htm

Thanks, Steve. These are interesting links. I found especially interesting the first one, describing 2-4-6 tribromoanisole (TBA), which was found at the detectable level in only 20 percent of their sample, which might explain why I only had one "corked" bottle out of the six I bought.

how could it be corked unless the TCA came from a barrel or the winery? The first four bottles were delicious and so is the sixth.

And if the TCA in the fifth bottle came from barrels or winery, they why weren't the other bottles corked?

As you write yourself, there are several other sources for TCA in wine than the cork itself, such as barrels, hoses, drains, pallets... Maybe the other bottles you've had came frome a batch that was unaffected or slightly less so, so the level of TCA in those bottles were below your threshold of perception.

Cheers,
Anders