On 30 Jan 2005 17:08:40 GMT, Michael Pronay wrote:

>
> OK then - how about the wax and cloth industry 200 years ago, when
> the first moves to cork arised? Things *are* changing, and life
> today is not like it has been 30, 50 or 150 years ago.
>

That's not going to be much of a consolation to the thousands of people who
depend on producing wine corks as an explanation of why they're going to be
out of a job. It's a important industrial sector in Portugal and its demise
would damage the country's economy.


>> Cork is an infinitely renewable resource, is biodegradeable, and
>> will not sit around in rubbish dumps for hundreds of years like
>> Teflon.
>
> First, there is no teflon involved in scerwcaps.

The OP suggested a Teflon element in the new caps.


Second, the
> failure rate is alarming. No other industry worldwide could get
> along with such rates. The latest survey found its way to the
> newspapers three days ago:
>
> <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...5/01/27/WIGP7B
> 0EOG1.DTL>
>
> It shows an 8 percent failure rate on some 2000 wines tasted.
>
>> I'm very skeptical about tastings which report failure rates of
>> up to 30%.
>
> The next time i'll invite you. That was the taint rate in our
> Bordeaux 1995 tasting (101 wines) two weeks ago.

If the average failure rate is 8%, then it's quite possible that
occasionally a tasting might result in a rate this high, but you must have
been particularly unfortunate with that sample.

>> Even so, I think a few corked bottles of wine every now and
>> again is a price we should be prepared to pay.
>
> No. I am not prepared to pay this price. Some weeks ago I had
> dinner at my house, and the magnum of Gruaud-Larose 1961 - a
> wedding gift back in 1992 from a guy then working for Cordier's
> importers to Austria - was opend in presence of the donor to be
> the star of the evening. TCA, once again.
>
> No, I am definitely fed up!
>

You might be fed up but you can always afford another bottle of wine. I
still think that given the vast economic mismatches between the cork
producers and ourselves, that we should learn to live with an 8% failure
rate and pressure the industry into improving cork rather than abandoning
it.
..
>
>> There are ways of improving the performance of cork, for e.g.,
>> by washing in hydrogen peroxide,
>
> I've heard *so* many solutions to the problems of TCA taint for
> almost 30 years - and *none* has proven successfull. You don't
> mind if I remain extremely sceptical.

Well, it's worth a try!

>
>> but a large part of the problem is that the price for lower
>> grades of cork has come down over the past 20 years or so, and
>> so a great many of the problems that are emerging now arise as a
>> result of bottlers using inferior cork in order to save money.
>
> Which, of course, happens to be true for Bordeaux crus classés,
> too? Go figure.
>

Of course even higher grade cork is going to taint the odd wine. I just
think the suggestion to abandon cork altogether is disproportionate to the
incovenience it causes.
--
Cliff Laine, The Old Lard Factory, Lancaster http://www.loobynet.com
* remove any trace of rudeness before you reply *

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