Robin Garr wrote:Oliver McCrum wrote:Why would expensive cork be 'a lot less likely to be infected'?
There are about a dozen legitimate reasons why it would be LESS likely, some of the biggies being the careful prevention of ground contact from the forest to the factory.
Cork-industry claims that TCA can be eliminated from natural cork may be dubious. But there's no question that a variety of quality-control approaches can reduce its incidence dramatically - at a cost for cork that many producers are unwilling to pay.
With respect, Robin, I think that this is misleading. You appear to be suggesting that cork taint would be substantially reduced if producers were prepared to pay more; I know this isn't the case for my producers, and I suspect it isn't true generally. The blame for this problem can't be shifted to the customers, it remains squarely with the producers.
My understanding is that paying more guarantees one improvement only: appearance. It does not guarantee more QC, more freedom from taint. In fact I think Schildknecht made the argument that the most expensive, beautiful corks of all, those used by the best German producers for their best wines, suffered from higher than average incidence of TCA because of the way they were handled. I know a Sonoma Coast producer who pays a fortune for corks. His suppliers agreed to let him have his lab do QC on a sample from each bag of corks, and to let him return the ones that tested 5% or higher; he returns more than half of the bags.
The cork industry has been trumpeting certain improvements (such as avoiding the 'foot' of the bark, and avoiding contact with the ground or preservative-treated pallets) for ages, I don't think they are claiming that these improvements are only to be had with the most expensive corks.