I bit my tongue, counted to 10, etc., swearing that I would *not* post on this topic but …

First off, let me state right off the bat, I am a loyal Vayniac, having watched every episode since #76. I respect what Gary is trying to do, how he switches things up in order to attract new wine drinkers, to expand one’s palate, to poke at sacred wine cows. (Even though some of the episodes are duffers as a consequence).

But ….

This brings me to the topic of TCA sensitivity. In clinical trials, *some* if not many people can taste TCA in PARTS PER BILLION. Others, who are otherwise very good tasters, CANNOT TASTE IT AT ALL. Given the cork industry itself, who have a very vested interest in stating otherwise, think the incidents of cork taint to be much higher than what you are stating (i.e. they think it is ~1% – or 1 bottle in 100 – see http://www.corkqc.com/currentresearch/research.htm – whereas you think it is more like ?one in thousands?), you might be part of the latter group.

You constantly expound to “trust your own palate,” yet when people state that they are tasting a corked wine, you sneak behind their backs to test for TCA to prove them wrong. Which, at least to my mind, is somewhat hypocritical.

Notwithstanding this hypocrisy, Gary?s ?evidence? is just anecdotal: ?I had a few purportedly duff bottles tested and they weren?t off.? I have just as strong personal anecdotal evidence where I have brought back corked bottles to my favourite wine merchant, who couldn?t taste the taint, had the agents test the bottles, only to confirm my suspicion. I myself am very sensitive to TCA.

Liz was one of Gary?s best guests to date.

Liz dislikes screwcaps because of the prevalence of reductive faults. Many if not most of these can be corrected by small changes in winemaking, i.e., using less SO2. Traditional levels of added SO2 were necessary as an antioxidant for corked stopped bottles, however, those same levels are unnecessary in screwcapped bottles, given their better airtight seal, resulting occasionally in reductive faults. (High school chemistry lesson: reduction is the opposite of oxidation; having an antioxidant in the absence of air results in a reductive solution). The winemaking industry is catching on to using lower levels of SO2. The bonus is that these lower levels of SO2 will benefit those people who are sensitive to sulphides.

Many if not most of these reductive faults will either blow off with air (unlike TCA which only gets worse with air) or dropping a clean copper penny into the decanter. There is no credible cure for TCA-tainted wine.

Notwithstanding all the above, I think Gary made these statements as much to ?stir things up? as anything else. As is his wont.

QOTD: The question should be more spontaneous–not something that can be answered by Google or an encyclopedia(in the olden days).

Still a good show overall.

The screw cap is awesome! i don’t care what anyone says. Also, I agree that people are way to extreme about the corking thing. my estimation is that about 1 in every thousand is corked, or maybe 1 in every 2000.

Amarula liqueur – tasty stuff, but I’m not into cream liqueurs.

Great show u 2 should get together and do a Portuguese show…soon!

Cork: 1 in 12 bottles has some (even if minute) TCA or cork taint

Screwcaps: mercaptans or SO2 reduction…sulfur/rotten eggs smell that in most instances can blow off if allowed to breath

QOTD: is it loquats?

QOTD: Amarula.

I liked the banter with the wine chick – it’s fun to hear two wine geeks nerd it up once in a while.

Fun Episode! Great enthusiasm like always and honest responses from Gary. Was not digging the wine chick at all…i tried… but she didn’t appeal to me(in anyway).
“The proof is in the pudding”, and i really enjoyed Gary shutting her arguments down several times! haha!

Fun Episode but lady needs to go!

Very mixed on this show. It looked like there were two tigers on one mountain and a little competition going on – not that this is bad. But a little uncomfortable at times and did not see much chemistry between the two. So, I think she was a good technical guest but just not clicking together.

Cork… just slows down getting to the good stuff… to me I don’t care. It is the wine that is the important thing. I do not believe I have ever had a corked wine – but there again I don’t have a palette either. We currently go through about 4 bottles a week so we must be pretty lucky or the stats include a whole area of wines that we do not touch.

QOTD – who cares

Cool show!

Interesting discussion on screwcaps. I work in a restaurant/pub with a good wine trade. We notice about 2% of the wines are too badly affected to drink.

It may be more because some customers do not like to say, or would not notice it was cork contamination. I always give the wines a quick sniff before serving them but it is not always easy to tell from a discreet sniff from a bottle just opened.

One thing that scares me is that wether a wine has a screwcap or a cork we still go through the ritual of the customer trying the wine before serving it to the other geusts. I have noticed a disturbing and increasing trend of peole asking each other wether they “like it” as if they would want another if they didn’t like it. I am not looking forward to the embarrassing day when I have to explain that.

I’m all for the screwcap, although my bottle opener is my pride and joy.

Cool show!

Interesting discussion on screwcaps. I work in a restaurant/pub with a good wine trade. We notice about 2% of the wines are too badly affected to drink.

It may be more because some customers do not like to say, or would not notice it was cork contamination. I always give the wines a quick sniff before serving them but it is not always easy to tell from a discreet sniff from a bottle just opened.

One thing that scares me is that wether a wine has a screwcap or a cork we still go through the ritual of the customer trying the wine before serving it to the other geusts. I have noticed a disturbing and increasing trend of peole asking each other wether they “like it” as if they would want another if they didn’t like it. I am not looking forward to the embarrassing day when I have to explain that.

I’m all for the screwcap, although my bottle opener is my pride and joy.

You killed it today. Liza is your female counterpart, wine nerd with ADD.

by the way, I come across corked bottles often, but think putting a percentage on it is silly. If I think a bottle might be corked, but find myself digging a bit too deep I let it go. I work on the restaurant side of things and found 3 bottles of a case of Macon-Villages to be CLEARLY corked. I mean wet-wet newspaper, even you could not deny TCA presence.

My point is, so what if 1 in 100 are corked. Most of the corked wine is found at the lower end of things where corks are not given the proper treatment. 1 in 100 has NOTHING to do with high end wines.

I love wine keys. But, sometimes my wrist hurts. I like to twist off screws when opening white wines that cost less than $10.
QOTD: I want to get drunk off elephant food too.

Where’s this “Skrewtop Kingdumb” you speak of? An alley in Newark? Perth Amboy? In college, there was a girl from Perth Amboy named Cookie.

I actually liked the interaction between Liza and Gary. A lot of great classic wine debates were brought up: New World vs. Old World, Screwcap vs. Cork, and the role of brettanomyces in wine (I embrace the “poopiness” of wines, in particular, Red Burgundy).

At times, I felt like they were trying to measure each other’s wine knowledge, but without the awkwardness that sometimes follows. It’s great that Gary was unabashed in challenging Liza’s preconceived notions (e.g. screw caps, the conflict of interest of cork companies educating her on cork, “brettiness” Californian, Australian, Greek and Pinotage wines) even though there were mixed results with respect to the quality of the wines chosen here.

Gary,

Great guest- nice debate about corks vs. screwtops- you never told us the dark side of screwtops before!

MTH

Hi,
I own my own wine shop. I do lots of tastings and open up lots of bottles of wine. I believe the % of “corked” wine is higher than you believe. I think it is more like 2-3%. I also believe some people are less receptive to it than others, especially men-no scientific proof, just my experience.

I LOVE your show and mostly agree with you. Just didn’t this time. Thanks for the shows and your spirit, you’re awesome.

I have no clue what elephants eat that can be made into a liquour unless it is bananas. I don’t mind screw caps for short term drinking wines but if I am holding a wine more than 3 years it is cork. I have done the experiment for me and screw caps allow for no evolution of the wine so not for something alive. I have had corked wines and my experience is about 1/500 bottles based on my own tasting records. I have had people who have said Brett affected wines were corked but I keep a sample of corked wine to let them smell TCA and then they understand the difference. I am tolerant of light Brett but if it is heavy the wine is just not to my taste. She was an excellent guest and one that I hope you have back.

Did a google lookup and it is Marula fruit.

Great show you guys, loved the debate about screw tops vs cork. I agree with both of you, I love the romance in Cork but if I am going to drink the wine within 5 years I prefer screw tops…also like the quickness of screw tops.

QOTD: watermelons?????? LOL 🙂

Wait, wait, hold on a second. Was that lady talkin’ trash about bacon?

Liked the episode Gary. Its fun to see your down to earth sensible approach to wine. I think Liza was a good guest. It was funny to see it dawn on her that the number of corked bottles proposed by the industry is due to wine snobbery, rather than actual corked bottles. Im not sure she conceeded the point right away, but the obvious absurdity of 1 out of 100 is apparent. Keep up the good work.

PS Was the show edited? There seems to be a skip. Did you pause the tape to tell her to stop disagreeing with you? Like, hey cut the wine snobbery out or your outta here! lol.

I may be wrong here Gary but this woman seem a little nervous? Maybe she was intimidated by the Wine Library “action”!! Well she seems quite nice but a Journalist? A bit too “figetee” for my liking!

nice show and interesting guest.

it´s curious, there is possibly no other product in the world than wine, where 1 or 2% failure rate is more or less accepted. In my opinion cork is an antiquated closure. I once opened a bottle of a famous spanish gran reserva in the 50,- ? range and it was clearly undrinkable because of the cork taint. It was a spoiled evening too.
Many wineries in germany or austria are using by now screw caps or glas closure, especially for white wines, to improve customer satisfaction. Some of these winemakers allege that around 30% of their wines in some way had been adversely affected by cork. Sometimes its only a lack of fruit or a certain dullness but by all means different to the wines they bottled.

ok, cork is a natural product with some favorable characteristics but its also a limited resource and we should use it only for high quality wines that want to age. All the other wines, maybe 95% of all need an up-to-date closure (like screw cap) to satisfy the demands of winemakers, merchants and customers.

btw I like portugiese wines too

greets from the ruhrgebiet