>>I'm very skeptical about tastings which report failure rate=ADs of up
to 30%.


>Why? Because it's not your personal experience. It isn't min=AD>e
either, but
>then we may be lucky/careful in our choice of supplier!

Ian,
I'm not sure how being careful with the supplier would mitigate the
cork issue since the supplier wouldn't be able to discern TCA until the
bottle was opened.

FWIW, screwcaps aren't perfect either. I'm seeing more and more
incidents of seal failures. IMO, they fail (as would corks) because
the wine is not shipped properly and it either freezes or gets quite
hot which in either case would force the wine against the seal and
leaking can occur. Perhaps it's just timing but I haven't seen the
same issue with corks to the same degree.

I hae the same problem corkscrews with synthetic corks but I haven't
had a seal fail within 12-24 months. I opened a few wines recent;y
with plastic stoppers that went back to the early to min 1990's and the
wine was fine but I had a bugger of a time getting the"cork" off of the
corkscrew.