Written by Tod Stewart | 06 July 2010

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Wine Defects
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Tasting Note:
Appearance: Tending towards amber/tawny; slightly hazy
Nose: Fetid, pungent, most unpleasant; onion, garlic, rotten egg, band-aid; hurl-inducing
Taste: Kill me. Now.

It’s pretty unlikely, given the advances in winemaking technology, and our understanding of bacteriological bugbears and how to operate hygienic facilities, that you’ll run into a wine with this caliber of malodorous pong and palate-traumatizing yuckiness. But you will, as sure as Malbec will dominate the vinous landscape for at least another month (maybe two), run into the occasional bottle that over-delivers in badness. We’re not talking about those that are simply bland, lackluster and void of joie de vivre (though I personally consider these to be defective), but ones that are actually flawed, defective and thoroughly noxious. Wine, as I’m sure learned Tidings readers know, is a living substance; a biological being subject to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune should something go amiss in the vineyard, the winery or even in the bottle. Fermentation itself involves a vigorous tango between yeast and sugar. Much molecular energy is expended in this consummation, and numerous offspring are produced. Some good (alcohol, esters, bubbles, profit for the winery, etc.); some not. And even if the whole act comes off with sparks flying and participants relaxing with a cigarette afterwards, the perils do not end here. In fact, one of the most common wine defects has nothing to do with winemaking at all. To wit, the heartbreak of 2-4-6 Trichloroanisol (TCA, for short).

TCA, or “cork taint,” is the vinous version of “when bad things happen to good people.” As a winemaker, you’ve done everything right. Meticulous fruit selection, hand sorting berries and traditional fermentation; you’ve even, much to the horror of your cohorts, advisors and accountants, eschewed using roto-fermenters, reverse osmosis machines, oak chips, judicious lashings of Mega Red and Mega Purple, and you’ve avoided mega alcohol. Careful aging, fining, racking, and, to really thumb your nose at comvin sense, no filtration. It’s bloody perfect. Imagine, then, the utter, borderline-suicidal rage you’d experience at seeing your masterpiece rendered bilge water courtesy of a hunk of infected tree. Allow me to elaborate.

Cork is tree bark. The inner bark of the cork oak, to be exact. In the process of bleaching cork in a strong chlorine solution to prep it as bottle stopper material, a reaction can occur between chlorine, cork contaminated with TCA, and mould spores. When infected cork is introduced to wine, the reaction is not convivial. The wine takes on a dank, musty, old book/damp basement aroma. What’s particularly insidious about cork taint is that it strikes in various intensities. Sometimes it’s dead obvious. Other times it takes a glass or two (or three) before you say, “WTF?” A corked wine can’t be “uncorked.” It’s a goner. A beautiful wine. Alas, cootie cork. Dinner is ruined. (The world of wine is rather devoid of haiku.)

Luckily, there are alternatives to tree bark. There are those plastic things that act like cork but aren’t cork (the newer generation of which are a far cry from the hernia-inducing originals, but are still sometimes accused of leaching flavour out of wines and encouraging premature oxidation). And there are screw-caps. Long associated with rotgut rouge and the like, screw-caps are now legit closures for top-quality juice, thanks largely to the Kiwis. However, as with many things in life, the elimination of one problem sometimes begets another.