To Smell or Not to Smell (The Cork)?

To Smell or Not To Smell (The Cork)?

A good restaurant today will open a bottle of wine for you and present the cork.  You are afraid to ask why am I seeing the cork?  Historically, premium Bourdeaux wines would be marketed by unscrupulous business people who would put a fake label from a well-respected winemaker on an ordinary bottle of wine.  The Bourdeaux winemakers to protect their wines began to put identifying marks on their wine corks to differentiate their wines from fake bottles.  With advent of computers and improved printers, corks can be faked by almost anyone.  Now a days, winemakers are using corks to promote their websites or brands.  I looked through hundreds or corks recently and one caught my eye from Lazarre Wines.  Winemaker Adam Lazarre is known for liking leopard print so he uses it on his wine corks. 

So when then smell the cork today?

Inspecting the cork or smelling it may tell you something about the wine.  If the cork is dry and crumbly, then the wine may not have been stored properly thus not the best that it can be.  The wine maybe oxidized.  If the cork is wet but smells like a wet dog or cardboard then the wine may be “corked”.  A possibility a wine is “corked” is due to the presence of TCA (2,4,6-trichloroanisole) or TBA (2,4,6-tribromoanisole) which only applies to natural cork; not synthetic corks.  TCA may be present due to fungus in a wood barrel too.  Both TCA and TBA are harmless to people.  “Corked” wine began occurring recently in modern time as cork was treated with chlorine bleaching but now less frequently due to treating cork with peroxide.  TCA may also be caused by industrial pollutants absorbed by cork trees or when the cork is subject to wood preservatives.

Winemakers and probably more likely their business partners are pushing synthetic corks due to less cost, easier to print, less complaints and greater availability.  The best way to smell if a wine is “corked” is to have the server pour a small amount of wine in a glass and then smell the wine.  If it is “corked” it will smell less than what you expect like something musty.   Perhaps less than 5% of wine may be “corked” so you are more likely to enjoy a great bottle of wine with your friends and family.