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though few of them could spot a bad wine in a $50 Riedel glass. Nevertheless, they persevere, shoving corks into the visages of countless, hapless minions.
Make them stop. A cork’s purpose is to hold the wine in the bottle until you want to drink it. If something is wrong with the wine, smell and taste it: that’s the best indicator. The smell and taste of the wine, not its cork, are the true indicators. Smelling the cork to see if the wine is bad is like turning on the TV to see if you have a flat tire. No, it’s more like turning on the weather channel to see if it’s hailing outside.
The Role of Cork
A cork is a natural cylinder cut from the bark of a 25 year or older cork oak in Portugal, Spain or northern Africa. Most Champagne corks are composed of 3 pieces of cork glued together. Some corks are made from cork particles glued together and called composite corks. |
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The newest cork is synthetic. They are proven as flawless closures for short-term drinking wines. These synthetic corks seem to have unending life, can be reused and have grown radically in popularity in the last 10 years.
A Bad Bottle
Natural cork is not a permanent closure. Cork is too weak for use beyond 25 years or so, especially if the wine has been moved. At least 5% of corked wines are tainted by a chemical we call TCA, or tricloroanisole, ruining the wines with stinky, dank, musty aroma. No amount of “breathing” will save the wine. Just remember, the older the wine, the more fragile the cork.
If the wine is heat-damaged, it will have a cooked or stewed tomato aroma, and exhibit extreme stickiness around the mouth and neck of the bottle, or dried rivulets on the side of the bottle. Reject the wine and choose another, as all of the bottles are probably from the same badly-stored case. |
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