Cork Problems: What you need to know
This is a fairly long post about the cork problems in Australia. If they are problems in Oz, they may well be the same all over the world. Frankly, what I have found out shocked me. The situation is a lot worse than I expected, and frankly all wine lovers need to be made aware of what's going on. As a result of all the negative cork experiences of recent times I decided to do some extended research over the last six months. It took two forms: First I sent a fax to the big four Australian producers asking four questions and requesting a written response. Then I began to keep track of bad bottles opened. This culminated in a trip for a week to South Australia. Part One - The following four questions were sent to Southcorp, BRL Hardy, Orlando Wyndham and Beringer Blass, who produce the vast majority of Australian wine. 1. What is your company's position in regard to an acceptable percentage rate for corked wines (TCA)? 2. What percentage rate do you deem reasonable for all other faults including random oxidation, closure failure, Sulphur group problems etc? 3. What is your company's position in regard to replacement of wines that are below normal standard because they have been affected by TCA or have some other fault? 4. In reference to wine regarded by the consumer as "faulty," what processes are in place were it is not possible or easy to return the wine to the place of purchase? This is becoming increasingly important as more wine is purchased over the Internet. The Responses First cab off the rank was Customer Relations at "Southcorp" who rang me as they had my phone number on file. (Major brands include Penfolds, Rosemount, Wynns, Lindemans Coldstream Hills, Seaview Edwards & Chaffey, Devils's Lair etc.) I spoke to Olivia a few days prior to Easter. They regarded 5-8% as an acceptable level of TCA. They could not comment on the level of other faults, stating it was confidential company information. In terms of replacement of bad or off bottles, no problem, "they take full responsibility" was Olivia's comment. Any bad bottles would be replaced by them, however if it was "an expensive" bottle they would want the dud bottle returned to them which they would arrange at their cost. Replacement would normally be with current vintage, not necessarily the vintage being returned. When I requested the information in writing, and explained that I wanted to quote them on some Internet Forums, Olivia became very cautious and said she would have to pass it on up the line as they would need authority to give me any information in writing about their policies. (Comment....this is very strange when you consider their previous attitude and comments toward the value of forums such as this one. Previously they stated they placed no value on the communication content of wine forums, so I wonder why they are concerned about being quoted here?) Four weeks later I sent a follow-up fax to Olivia at Southcorp reminding her that I was still awaiting a response in writing to my questions. To date, no further response from them. I will make no further comment on their level of customer service in this matter. Readers can make up their own minds about Southcorp's attitude to its customers in this regard. Next response was a fax from Orlando Wyndham (O/W) asking me to provide a phone number so they could ring me to discuss the matter. (Major brands include Jacobs Creek, Orlando Premium Range, Richmond Grove, Wyndham Estate etc.) The contact was Tania Brown who is their Quality Assurance Manager. Tania was very forthright and open in her answers. During the conversation I told her why I was asking for the information and she was happy to be quoted. In terms of TCA, O/W maintains they are the only major producer in Australia to randomly test corks from every batch (of 10,000 corks) they receive. If they detect any taint at all, the whole batch is rejected. Even with this testing they claim their TCA rate is 4%. Without testing they feel their rate would be about 7%. In terms of other faults, as the vast majority of their wines like Jacobs Creek are drunk young, many of the faults don't show immediately and the buyers wouldn't know if the fault was of a minor nature. They also blend most large batches to order (unlike most other major producers) and have 17-18 stock turns a year. The industry average stock turns are 3-4, so as they are turning them over very quickly, they feel their percentage of other wine problems is very low. O/W stated they are very happy to replace bad bottles and if they have the back vintage in the museum, they will try and replace with like for like vintage. Unfortunately that's not always possible, so if for example you had a dud 88 St Hugo, you may get a 91 or 94 as a replacement. (Comment - this is a better replacement policy than most other companies.) In terms of replacement when you cant take the bottle back to the place of purchase; they will have their rep pick it up from you if necessary. Tania also had some very interesting comments on the cork industry and rate of corked wines. Tania stated that in her opinion the cork industry was "unscientific" and jumped on the latest bandwagon to try and solve their problems without necessarily doing enough scientific research first. A good example of that was the micowaving of corks they tried recently. However Tania stated they are getting better and have had a big scare thanks to the artificial closure industry. For example, in days gone by they would wash a batch of corks in water that had previously been used, so the water was in fact "dirty" and possibly contaminated. This sort of bad practice is now changing. O/W regularly carry out competitive taste testings. Recently they had a wine (she did name it, but I don't feel it is necessary to do so here) in a competitive tasting where six out of sixteen bottles of the competitors wine were corked. Later in the conversation Tania mentioned in passing (again) that she felt the cork industry was getting better. I then asked her, "if that was the case how come the wine industry had been quoting figures of 5% as being the corked rate for years and now some of the majors are quoting 8% as being the corked rate?" The answer was very revealing. Tania stated she thought the corked rated had always been 8-10% based on their company's own competitive tasting tests and that finally the wine industry was starting to come clean with the percentage. Comment.... Firstly Tania is to be congratulated on her honest and forthright response to my questions. I got the impression that O/W was doing everything possible to look after their customers and not hide from the problem. More importantly they are doing random testing on every batch of corks and have a better replacement policy than most. After four week I had no response from either Beringer Blass or BRL Hardy, so I faxed the top guys. It was the CEO of the wine division at BB and the MD of BRLH and I received a fax back from both of them apologising for their company lack of response. The next written reply to my questions came from Margaret Francis, Customer Services Technical manager at BRL Hardy. (Major brands include Hardys, Leasingham, Reynella, Houghtons, Stonehaven, Moonda Brook etc.) The response was very cute. "Acceptable level is 0% for TCA, random oxidation, failure rate and associated problems." It then went on to detail replacement policy for defective product, which basically states they will be replaced. In light of the fact that BRLH felt that 0% was acceptable I sent a few follow up questions. Basically I stated that whilst I applauded their objective of 0%, what did BRLH estimated their current percentage of defective product to be due to TCA etc. In response I received a 13 page fax. The cover page states:-
"Attached is information from Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) and Australian Wine & Brandy Corporation (AWBC) regarding TCA and closures.
Page 53 and 55 (table 1) "Incidents of musty/mouldy taints in bottled wines" refers to research for TCA level of occurrence.
We are continuously working with our closures suppliers and other industry resources, such as AWRI and AWBC for trends on TCA and other variables and wine.
Again, please feel free to contact me if you need more information." Here are some extracts from the first six page article. (Wine Industry Journal Vol 14 No 6) "Beginning in about mid 1993, the general news media in Australia has given an astonishing amount of coverage to the controversy surrounding the use of corks and problems of musty/mouldy taints in bottled wine. The issue still remains a favourite topic for wine writers. The remarkable thing about all this publicity is not just that there is some exaggeration of the incidents and the significance of the problems, but that these exaggerations appear to originate in the wine industry itself. This raises the possibility that the wine makers could score an own goal." (Oz lingo for scoring points for your opposition.) The following is information that was highlighted by BRLH when they sent the article to me. "Incidents of musty/mouldy taints in bottled wines" Accurate data on the occurrence of musty/mouldy taints are hard to come by. There is an understandable reluctance on the part of corks suppliers and wine companies to publish the details of any problems with taints. Some results are reported from time to time in various publications (Table 1) that these often tend to focus on problems. That is, individual wines or groups of wines in which higher than usual rates of tainted bottles occur. The failure to detect taints in large groups and wines may be good news for wine makers and consumers, but the results themselves are not very newsworthy. There is a popular misconception that there is an 'average rate' of musty/mouldy taints for bottled wines and that this 'average rate' indicates the probability of the consumer getting tainted bottles of wines. Like most popular views of what is 'average' or 'normal' with, for the idea of an average rate and tainted in bottled wine can be misleading." The chart then proceeds to the details of "public data on musty/mouldy taints in bottled wines." The second six page article (Australian Grapegrower & Winemakers May 1999 commencing on page 59) went into great detail about research that is being done on alternative closures. There were a few points that were relevant to this matter. "Cork taint was considered the major problem associated with use of these closures for many decades. Reliable statistics on the number of corked wines are difficult to find. It is assumed that 4% of these wines are, in some ways adversely affected by the closure and the average value of a wine is $10 per bottle, this equates to approximately $160 million worth of product being spoiled every year. This financial loss is further accentuated by the potential erosion of consumer confidence, and associated loss of brand loyalty." Comments It's obvious from the information provided by BRLH that they had no desire to provide any real information of their own. Instead, they provided generic articles from industry publications. From my perspective, the information provided in the first article is somewhat slanted to try and put a positive spin on a very large problem and further reduce the magnitude of the problem to make it look a lot smaller than reality. If an industry starts believing its own flatulent rhetoric, the flatulent rhetoric may turn out to be a much more solid and messy problem, if you will pardon a stinking play on words. The last response was from Beringer Blass Wine Estates. (Range of wines include, Andrew Garrett, Annie's Lane, Greg Norman, Ingoldby, Jamison Run, Maglieri, Mamre Brooke, Saltrams, Wolf Blass, etc.) I received a fax from Terry Davis, the Managing Director who apologised for the lack of response from his company to my original letter. In his fax to me, Terry stated a few interesting things. As to their replacement policy, BB will either replace or refund the purchase price for any of their wines that are faulty. Terry then goes on to state "I have had some difficult personal experiences returning wines to some retailers in the past, particularly museum release products which have been over the hill." (Comment - very interesting to note that even the executives of major wine companies have these sorts of problems. From my personal experiences, I have found BB to be incredibly helpful in sorting out replacement of defective bottles. They are by far away the most efficient and helpful in this area.) A more complete response then came from Russell Johnson, Wine Division Technical Manager. He states the following. 1. The industry perspective for TCA is generally between 2% to 4%. 2. Beringer Blass test their corks in Portugal and in Australia. "We are confident that the presence of TCA in our wines is less than 1%." 3. They believe the current level of other faults across the whole industry is "well under 1%." (Comment, so Beringer Blass have stated in writing that they actually believe they produce less than 2% dud bottles.) Summary of Industry Comments Basically we have four major companies who produce the lions share of wine in Oz all saying different things. BRL Hardy basically refuses to make any comments. Southcorp stated "up to 8% for TCA" but refuse to state it in writing. Orlando Wyndham feels it is about 8% but they are doing better than that percentage. Finally we have Beringer Blass saying they think TCA is running at 4-5%, but they are achieving 1%. I will let readers make up their own minds about the industry claims. Just One Recent Industry Experience I could site three or four interesting situations that have occurred to me in the last few months that highlight the industry's lackadaisical attitude towards the problem of dud bottles. The most recent was 97 Mount Ida Shiraz where the Beringer Blass admitted they had a bad batch. (I am not singling out Beringer Blass, they just happen to be the most recent experience.) During an earlier conversation with customer service I was informed the bottles in the original batch were "corked." They replaced the case I had purchased with wine from a different batch and the replacement bottles were as bad as the first lot. nten Today a winemaker at Beringer Blass rang me to obtain more data on the "dud" wine. To me, it seemed the problem was either mercaptans or possibly guaiacol and I mentioned I was surprised the winemakers had found the first batch to be "corked." The wine maker informed me "we don't really know what was wrong with the first batch, we just say it's 'corked.' We don't have a mass spectrometer and didn't get the wine tested by the Wine Research Institute, but we will get it done this time." Comments - even one/some of the big four in Australia refer to wine as "corked" when TCA may not be the reason. Secondly, surely their winemakers are sufficiently trained to be able to have a reasonably educated guess at the underlying cause of a bad bottle of wine; beyond saying everything is "corked". Recent South Australian Experience I recently spent a week in South Australia and am about to list every incidence of corked wine and off bottle found. The numbers speak for themselves. Saturday 12 May No corked wine out of 11 tried during the day, but we had a bottle of 1998 wine with dinner that was TCA affected. Opened another so we are running at one out of 14, not bad so far. Sunday 13 May 98 Kidman Shiraz, obvious cork taint, not oxidised, opened the afternoon previously, not been checked by cellar staff. 98 Katnook Shiraz bottle half empty when we arrived at CD. Wine had flat aroma, flat taste and finished short. Second bottle opened and was much better. So far we have 3 duds out of 39 bottles. Monday 14 May 95 Wynns Oven Valley Shiraz - oxidised but to be fair we won't count that in the results. 98 Greg Norman Blend - bottle about 2/3 full, obvious TCA, not detected by CD staff. Next bottle proved it. 96 Jamison Run Reserve - opened three bottles all were dud. To me, I thought it was a "sulpha category" problem. The CD staff member stated (without being asked or prompted in any way) "There are a lot more corked bottles in the last few years than we ever used to get before." So far we have 7 duds out of 60 bottles opened. Tuesday 15 May 99 Tatachilla Padathway Cab Sauv had an aroma that was dying in the glass as it received more air. CD Manager confirmed it "may be corked" and opened a second. The second bottle was fresher but as soon as I swirled some air into it, it died too. It also finished short. Four days later I went back and asked if the winemakers had a definitive result of the problem. I was informed, "they had their suspicions but were still testing." In a sequent phone call I was informed the wine was fine, "it was just going through a lull period." In another phone call to the winery I was informed the wine was bottled last year, so its not bottle shock. The staff also stated, "they noticed the wine seems dead and it was no longer available for tasting at CD, but it is still for sale." They have no idea how long it will stay in that "lull condition." Split the score on this one, count the first bottle as corked and the second as "ok but in a lull." By way of comments the Tatachilla CD staff volunteered the following information. "We don't have many TCA bottles (at CD), just a few a week. We have a much bigger problem with leakers. The 99 Cabernet Sauvignon (a different label) has a batch of bad corks too." 99 Hardy Tintara Grenache - bottle that had been open for a few hours clearly had a problem. Second bottle opened the same. The CD manager's face when he tasted it was all the proof anyone needed. 96 Hardy Chateau Reynella Cabernet Sauvignon was freshly opened. Passed as ok by CD manager, it showed mild signs of TCA. CD manager opened another bottle, and that proved me to be correct. The first was flat. (The CD Manager stated in conversation that at Wine Australia that they had opened 4 bottles in a row of 96 Jack Mann which all had bad TCA and he didn't know why they didn't use better quality corks in it, as they did in some of their other wines. He then also mentioned that they had bottled some Padathway Cabernet Sauvignon with a batch of dud corks. The problem had been picked up at CD during tastings.) So the count is now 11 dud out of 90 bottles. Wednesday 16 May 99 Cimicky Daylight Chamber Shiraz - three bottles in a row were opened and I was confident that were all TCA affected. The CD assistant then confided they had been bottled with a dud batch of corks and many were in fact affected by TCA. 99 Heyson Shiraz- corked picked up by Veritas staff as it was opened. The count is now 15 out of 120 Thursday 17 May 96 Grange, slightly oxidised and suffering from VA but had been open for a while, so we won't count this one. 98 Peter Lehmann Cabernet Sauvignon (almost full bottle) had an obvious flat nose that staff had missed as TCA. When I pointed it out to the CD Manager she agreed it was pretty obvious. 97 Eight Songs Shiraz was corked on opening. CD Manager had opened the bottle and was unsure at my prognosis, but she agreed to open a second bottle. She sniffed and tasted the second bottle and agreed the first had mild taint. 99 Eden Valley Shiraz - picked up as corked by the owner of the winery when he opened the bottle. 98 Fullers Barn Shiraz - one third of the bottle was gone. Steve (my fellow taster for three days) picked up this one before I got to it. ?? A wine brought to dinner, pronounced to have mercaptans by Rolf Binder when he opened it. The count is now 20 out of 148. Friday 18 May 99 Saltram Cab Sauv mild taint 98 Saltram Cab Sauv - a problem bottle - possibly due being opened to long so we wont count this one. 96 Jacobs Creek Limited Release Blend - TCA picked up by CD manager on her first smell. (I might add the CD Manager stated they have about one in twelve bottles that are dud, despite the comments made by their technical manager claiming about 5% maximum.) 98 Grant Burge - picked up by CD staff on opening The count is now 23 out of 179 Saturday 20 May 98 Henschke Mt Edelstone - bottle had been opened since late the previous afternoon and obvious taint was no apparent. CD staff opened a new bottle and agreed. 98 Scarpantoni Reserve Blend had obvious TCA on the nose when I tried it. CD staff opened a second and it was dead. Same with the third. I spoke to Phil Scarpantoni a few days later. He stated the first bottle was suffering from taint, but the second and third were fine, they were just "dead" due to the cold storage conditions at the back of the winery. I pulled a bottle out of my cellar that is at 11 degrees (52F) at the moment and placed the bottle in the fridge for a few days. Opened it and the aromas and taste at 4 degrees straight out of the fridge were jumping out the bottle (and glass that it was poured into.) Unless I can get a technical explanation for the differing results, I don't buy the story. Prior to dinner that evening we had a bottle of 94 Classic Clare Sparkling Shiraz and a bottle of 95 Sparkling E & E that were both mildly tained. This was confirmed by Glen Green, winemaker and importer of Le Nez du Vin. The count is now 27 out of 199 wines. But that's not entirely statistically fair as we had some where we had multiple bottles of dud wines, so for the purposes of this exercise lets reduce all multiples to a value of one. The adjusted count would now be 22 out of 194. That's 11%! In terms of credibility of information contained in this post, my original questions to the wine companies were posed in writing and answers were requested to be in writing. Some wineries did so. When I was visiting the wineries, on all days except one, (the Friday where I only picked up two dud bottles) I had either John Davis or Steve Norman with me and they can verify events. In addition, where I have quoted someone, in almost every instance I either have the comments in writing or John or Steve heard it too. As an aside, Murray had a great idea and here it is. A challenge for the cork industry, or wineries that endorse corks. Present a case of 10 - 15 year old classic release wine that has come direct from the winery. Open all 12 bottles at once. Assemble a group of top gun tasters and present the 12 bottles double blind. Will these bottles all taste the same? If they're over the hill, that's OK, but they should be all over the hill in exactly the same way and taste exactly the same. Will any company take that challenge? Doubt it!
Now to summarise the whole picture.
My first concern is that when I take wine that is from 1996 or older from my cellar, my rate of dud bottles is about 5%. However when I am tasting newer wines, my experience is showing that it's more like 10%.
The cork industry is telling us that the rate of TCA is declining. The way I see it, the rate is going up, not down. The cork industry will tell us they are spending heaps or R & D and have improved practices etc. Yes that may be true but the consumption of corks has gone up enormously over the last five years. Those corks have to come from somewhere. Is it possible the industry can't keep up with demand for high quality corks and as a result quality is being sacrificed for quantity?
The wine industry has a vested interest in trying to down play the problem. The more consumers are educated to know what to look for, and the more people start to recognise dud bottles, the higher the return rate to wine companies will be for replacement. And that will hurt their bottom line.
So what are the answers?
Firstly, it is obvious from reading many forums that many wine lovers don't know recognise a dud bottle. In many cases they just find it a bit flat or uninteresting. That's where education comes in. Read up on the subject and try and work out how to identify dud bottles. Chances are if you think a bottle of "good" wine is "flat" (in aroma, taste and finishes short) it may well be suffering from TCA. One easy way to find out (if its red) is to leave it open for 24 hours with a cork in it. If it is TCA, it should be a lot worse after 24 hours.
Secondly, don't get mad, get even. Take back every dud bottle to the retailer or contact the producer. By law, in Australia if the goods are not fir for the purposes they were sold, they have to replace the goods or provide a refund. (If it's an old bottle with bad storage history bought at auction, then it's a different matter.)
Thirdly, the cork industry only wants to see cork succeed. They have a vested interest to see alternative closures do not succeed in the market. They will continue to spread whatever marketing "hype" they can to push their product and bag any newcomers.
That's why consumers need to put pressure on the wine producers to come up with a solution. The large winemakers are now world-wide multinational players and can afford to commission their own research into alternate closures. Imagine how much a patent on a new wine closure that works 100% of the time that the market will accept would be worth? A license to print money!
Finally, try and gently show your non-wine geek friends how to pick a dud bottle.
The only way this will change is when pressure is brought to bare on those involved in the manufacturing process.
What other industry can get away with a 10% defect rate? Think about it please.
Cheers
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