The Wine Knows

You might have noticed that I'm no fan of cork taint and am more than happy to point out the volatility of protecting winemakers' hard work with a piece of tree bark.

Just last week, I wrote a screed about how we had a nearly 6 percent rate of cork taint during a Pinot Noir judging we conducted. This item surprised fellow wine scribe Mike Dunne of the Sacramento Bee, who said he's noticed a significant drop in tainted wines so far this year.

"I've had just the opposite experience over the past several months, with a noticeable drop in the number of corks tainted with TCA," he wrote. "At (the Dallas Morning News Wine Competition) this past weekend, our panel judged 240 wines and came up with no more than six obviously suffering from TCA or highly suspect. I don't think many of (the wines we judged) were screwcaps or boxes."

Eric Degerman, Wine Press Northwest managing editor, noted the same thing during last month's San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition.

"Members on two of the 12 panels reported fewer than 10 wines during the three days. Judges average about 120 wines per day for the three days," Eric wrote. "One judge on my panel, who is a winemaker, attributed this to cork producers finally doing something about their TCA problems after years of ignoring/disregarding complaints by consumers and the wine industry. The winemaker said competition provided by screwcaps and other alternative closures was the key."

Famed British wine writer Jancis Robinson also expounded yesterday on what Portugal is finally doing to improve the natural cork industry.