Tastevin's cork question

[Thomas]

It appears, Tastevin, we are suffering from a slight language discrepancy.

In America, people refer to TCA as a "corked" wine; that is what I was railing against. It is a misnomer to call a wine tainted with TCA as being corked, especially since TCA can be introduced in another way...or two.

What you refer to as "corked" is the actual condition of a wine having cork particles in it. That makes more sense than the above reference to the word. But to the idea that the smell is from the cork--not sure about that.

That musty-woody smell of a staurated cork is reminscient (to me) of what happens to the smell of the barrels when wine is in it. The components of the wine reacting with the wood create new smells, which (again, to me) are musty--not wet rag (as in TCA); cellar smell, for want of a better term.

That deteriorated cork you speak of would have the same smell as above. It represents the resulting smell of the wine having saturated the cork, which to me is not the same thing as the smell of cork.

You must know by now that I am a pedant on some matters--if you don't know it, you should listen to my wife for about twenty minutes on the subject of pedant and me. [img]http://wines.com/ubb2/eek.gif[/img]

[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 02-26-2004).]