Ian Hoare > wrote in message >. ..
> >One more thing, why do you say the cork introduced the microbes into
> >the wineries? My understanding is the microbes are found in more than
> >just cork trees and that they are rather common.
>
> That may be true, but you don't normally store wine in contact with cabbage
> stalks, or whatever or keep them lying around the winery. As Michael (P)
> says, if you have a contaminated barrel or whatever, ALL wines made from it
> will be corked, and that is NOT what happens, you tend to get one or two
> bottles corked. That makes it obvious that the contamination HAS to come
> from one of three places:- a) bottle, b) cork c) the capsule. Which of these
> three has its hand up?

Ian, you must not have followed the news out of several afflicted
California wineries in the past couple of years. As the folks at BV,
Hanzell and Gallo Sonoma (other labels including Rancho Zabaco, Frei
Brothers and others I don't remember) can tell you, cellar TCA
contamination does happen. Just about any wood product can host the
mold that leads to TCA, from cardboard to wooden barrel racks to the
barrels themselves. Add chlorine use in the winery and you have the
recipe for (as you say) many, many corked bottles - exactly what has
happened at these wineries. So in these cases, that *is* what
happened. According to this article, which you might want to read,
http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Da...5,2240,00.html, *all
twenty* bottles the Wine Spectator received from that Gallo facility
were corked, at an average 3 parts per trillion - perhaps not high
enough to be identified by those of us blessedly insensitive but still
plenty corked enough to hurt the wine.

- Mark W.

"JEP" > wrote in message
om...
> Michael Pronay > wrote in message
>...
> > "Craig Winchell/GAN EDEN Wines" > wrote:
> >
> > > Nope. If present only in the cellar, one would expect homogeneity
> > > throughout any given tank of wine prior to bottling, assuming it's
> > > been guthed. In my experience, that clearly has not been the case.
> > > Even using natural corks or peroxide corks, it varies greatly from
> > > bottle to bottle, even with "stainless steel" wines. At least in my
> > > case, and I would assume the vast majority of cases, the TCA problem
> > > is due to the corks.
> >
> > Exactly, 100 pour cent d'accord!
> >
> > And when JEP asks (in this thread):
> >
> > | When we open a bottle of '82 bordeaux to find it's "corked", do we
> > | really know the source of the TCA? How do we trace it back after 20
> > | years?
> >
> > I can only answer: Yes, we do know, for every cork tainted bottle of
> > Chateau Jenesaisquoi 1982, there are five, ten, twenty perfectly clean
> > bottles. What else than the cork should be the reason?
> >
> > M. - ceterum censeo corticem esse delendam
>
> Were the bottles from the same barrel of wine?

Very few places, mostly in Burgundy, will bottle straight from the barrel.
Most will blend the contents of many barrels in a tank prior to bottling, to
avoid gross variations in flavor and aroma.

> Was chlorine used as a
> sanitizer and that was the first bottle through the equipment after
> cleaning so it picked up the majority of chlorine?

Chlorine is really not used as a bottling line sanitizer anymore. Hot water
or steam are used almost exclusively nowadays. Chlorine is an oxidizing
agent. Nobody desires wine to be in contact with chlorine, with or without
the bacteria present to cause corked wine.

Did the bottles
> come in contact with chlorine and that one just wasn't rinsed properly
> before filling?

Bottles are not rinsed with chlorine anymore for that very reason. More
often than not in the USA, bottles are blown out and the air in them
displaced with nitrogen or CO2, and there is no actual sanitiziing procedure
that is used. More often than not, brand new glass in new boxes is used,
eliminating much of the need to sanitize the glass.

> Did that one cork come into contect with chlorine in
> the winery somehow?

Corks, at least in the USA, come to the wineries in bags of 1000, sanitized
with SO2 gas. It's just a matter of opening the bag and dumping it into the
cork hopper. No place for chlorine contact.

Is that one bottle the only one that contains TCA
> that is above the sensory threshold and the others are just below?
> There are many ways that one bottle can be "corked" while its neighbor
> is not.

True, and often, other corks have TCA but in lower concentration, and it is
not noticed that the wine is "corked", but it may taste a bit off in a more
generic way. Face it, everyone has already examined other factors and
rejected them as being the cause in at least the vast majority of cases.

>
> Your point can be said in the reverse, if one cork is TCA tainted, how
> can the other corks that came in the same bag not be? Why only that
> one cork out of the 5, 10, 20 surrounding it?

Who said they weren't tainted? However, it is reasonable to assume that
some are tainted to a greater extent, and some to a lesser extent.

>
> There are just too many variables to reliably trace the source of TCA
> back, unless it is done right away. We have seen a number of wineries
> that have traced the source of TCA contamination back to non-cork
> sources. You certainly can't just discount scientific evidence.

Who discounted scientific evidence? On the contrary, the evidence has been
examined scientifically, and it's been found that it's the quality of cork
currently available which is the primary factor. Listen, I'm a scientist
and a professional winemaker. The investigation has been done, properly and
scientifically. I have no idea why you think it hasn't. What do you think
we've been doing for the last 20 years in the industry? Why do you think
there's been a proliferation of other closures recently? Just because of
the industry clout of "big closure" (a play on "big oil")?

e resolved.
>
> Let's not use cork at a scapegoat, but instead address all sources of
> TCA taint so we no longer have to worry every time we open a wine that
> is dear to us.

OK, you can do that. I'll work on eliminating the problem in my wines, and
you can waste time looking for the mythical "second shooter".

Craig Winchell
GAN EDEN Wines

"JEP" wrote in message ..........
>
> Were the bottles from the same barrel of wine?
> Was chlorine used as a sanitizer and that was the first bottle
> through the equipment after cleaning so it picked up the majority of
> chlorine?
> Did the bottles come in contact with chlorine and that one just wasn't
> rinsed properly before filling?
> Did that one cork come into contact with chlorine in the winery
> somehow?
> Is that one bottle the only one that contains TCA that is above the
> sensory threshold and the others are just below?
>
> Your point can be said in the reverse, if one cork is TCA tainted, how
> can the other corks that came in the same bag not be? Why only that
> one cork out of the 5, 10, 20 surrounding it?
>
> There are just too many variables to reliably trace the source of TCA
> back, unless it is done right away. We have seen a number of wineries
> that have traced the source of TCA contamination back to non-cork
> sources. You certainly can't just discount scientific evidence.
>
> Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that all TCA taint, nor even
> the majority, is caused by non-cork sources (I just don't know how
> much, and no one really can), but I think it is more wide spread than
> some people want to believe and we need to address both cork and
> non-cork sources of TCA taint before the problem can be resolved.
>
> Let's not use cork at a scapegoat, but instead address all sources of
> TCA taint so we no longer have to worry every time we open a wine
> that is dear to us.

Kumeu River is one NZ winery (their wines have been regulars in Wine Spec
Top 100 for years!) which was plagued with TCA contamination - upwards of
15% of all wine was "corked".

This occurred across the spectrum; whites (barrell and stainless fermented)
and reds; vinted in a very modern winery - as close to being sterile as
possible.

They changed one thing - they now bottle under Stelvin closures *for all
their wines* - including their ultra-premium chardonnays and reds.

The result = zero TCA spoilage.

I rest my case!

--

st.helier

"Mark Willstatter" > wrote in message
om...
> Ian Hoare > wrote in message
>. ..
> > >One more thing, why do you say the cork introduced the microbes into
> > >the wineries? My understanding is the microbes are found in more than
> > >just cork trees and that they are rather common.
> >
> > That may be true, but you don't normally store wine in contact with
cabbage
> > stalks, or whatever or keep them lying around the winery. As Michael (P)
> > says, if you have a contaminated barrel or whatever, ALL wines made from
it
> > will be corked, and that is NOT what happens, you tend to get one or two
> > bottles corked. That makes it obvious that the contamination HAS to come
> > from one of three places:- a) bottle, b) cork c) the capsule. Which of
these
> > three has its hand up?
>
> Ian, you must not have followed the news out of several afflicted
> California wineries in the past couple of years. As the folks at BV,
> Hanzell and Gallo Sonoma (other labels including Rancho Zabaco, Frei
> Brothers and others I don't remember) can tell you, cellar TCA
> contamination does happen. Just about any wood product can host the
> mold that leads to TCA, from cardboard to wooden barrel racks to the
> barrels themselves. Add chlorine use in the winery and you have the
> recipe for (as you say) many, many corked bottles - exactly what has
> happened at these wineries. So in these cases, that *is* what
> happened. According to this article, which you might want to read,
> http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Da...5,2240,00.html, *all
> twenty* bottles the Wine Spectator received from that Gallo facility
> were corked, at an average 3 parts per trillion - perhaps not high
> enough to be identified by those of us blessedly insensitive but still
> plenty corked enough to hurt the wine.

Nobody ever said that TCA can't exist in the winery. As I said in a
previous post, since wine is typically blended and mixed in California prior
to bottling, one would expect such TCA to be uniform in all bottles from
that tank, since the tank contents are homogeneous, whereas the big problem
is not low levels of TCA homogeneously throughout the bottling, but rather
the 10% or so of noticebly corked bottles of wine. Some cellars have
noticeble, and perhaps unacceptable levels of TCA, but that's not a problem
for the industry, only for the individual wineries which experience the
problem, if it compromises wine quality.

Craig Winchell
GAN EDEN Wines

>
> - Mark W.

Salut/Hi Mark,

le/on 13 Feb 2004 08:53:28 -0800, tu disais/you said:-

>Ian Hoare > wrote in message >. ..
>> >One more thing, why do you say the cork introduced the microbes into
>> >the wineries? My understanding is the microbes are found in more than
>> >just cork trees and that they are rather common.
>>
>> That may be true, but you don't normally store wine in contact with cabbage
>> stalks, or whatever or keep them lying around the winery. As Michael (P)
>> says, if you have a contaminated barrel or whatever, ALL wines made from it
>> will be corked, and that is NOT what happens, you tend to get one or two
>> bottles corked. That makes it obvious that the contamination HAS to come
>> from one of three places:- a) bottle, b) cork c) the capsule. Which of these
>> three has its hand up?
>
>Ian, you must not have followed the news out of several afflicted
>California wineries in the past couple of years.

To some extent that's true Mark. Just as I'd not expect you to be aware of
changes - say - in legislation surrounding Haut Montravel, or the situation
in Saussignac, so I don't really keep up with what happens in some
californian wineries. Bergerac is of marginal importance for you in the USA,
and California is of marginal interest for me in backwoods France (we simply
never see the wines).

> As the folks at BV,Hanzell and Gallo Sonoma (other labels including Rancho Zabaco, Frei
>Brothers and others I don't remember) can tell you, cellar TCA
>contamination does happen.

I believe you, and I would guess that it will be easy to differentiate from
cork TCA, for all the reasons we've been enumerating. I'd not want you to
think I'm denigrating the industry in CA, but world wide, cork TCA creates
FAR more problems than any other.

--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website

"Craig Winchell/GAN EDEN Wines" > wrote in message link.net>...
> "Mark Willstatter" > wrote in message
> om...
> > Ian Hoare > wrote in message
> >. ..
> > > >One more thing, why do you say the cork introduced the microbes into
> > > >the wineries? My understanding is the microbes are found in more than
> > > >just cork trees and that they are rather common.
> > >
> > > That may be true, but you don't normally store wine in contact with
> cabbage
> > > stalks, or whatever or keep them lying around the winery. As Michael (P)
> > > says, if you have a contaminated barrel or whatever, ALL wines made from
> it
> > > will be corked, and that is NOT what happens, you tend to get one or two
> > > bottles corked. That makes it obvious that the contamination HAS to come
> > > from one of three places:- a) bottle, b) cork c) the capsule. Which of
> these
> > > three has its hand up?
> >
> > Ian, you must not have followed the news out of several afflicted
> > California wineries in the past couple of years. As the folks at BV,
> > Hanzell and Gallo Sonoma (other labels including Rancho Zabaco, Frei
> > Brothers and others I don't remember) can tell you, cellar TCA
> > contamination does happen. Just about any wood product can host the
> > mold that leads to TCA, from cardboard to wooden barrel racks to the
> > barrels themselves. Add chlorine use in the winery and you have the
> > recipe for (as you say) many, many corked bottles - exactly what has
> > happened at these wineries. So in these cases, that *is* what
> > happened. According to this article, which you might want to read,
> > http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Da...5,2240,00.html, *all
> > twenty* bottles the Wine Spectator received from that Gallo facility
> > were corked, at an average 3 parts per trillion - perhaps not high
> > enough to be identified by those of us blessedly insensitive but still
> > plenty corked enough to hurt the wine.
>
> Nobody ever said that TCA can't exist in the winery. As I said in a
> previous post, since wine is typically blended and mixed in California prior
> to bottling, one would expect such TCA to be uniform in all bottles from
> that tank, since the tank contents are homogeneous, whereas the big problem
> is not low levels of TCA homogeneously throughout the bottling, but rather
> the 10% or so of noticebly corked bottles of wine. Some cellars have
> noticeble, and perhaps unacceptable levels of TCA, but that's not a problem
> for the industry, only for the individual wineries which experience the
> problem, if it compromises wine quality.
>
> Craig Winchell
> GAN EDEN Wines
>

Craig, what part of Ian's post - "As Michael (P) says, if you have a
contaminated barrel or whatever, ALL wines made from it will be
corked, and that is NOT what happens, you tend to get one or two
bottles corked" - did I misunderstand. The fact is, in the cases I
mentioned, thousands - more probably millions - of bottles were
affected. I don't know if you read the article at the link I posted
but 20 out of 20 bottles at the Wine Spectator and TCA at between 2.5
and 5.6 ppt (on a small sample) and averaging 3 ppt sounds to me like
cellar contamination caused one hell of a lot of detectably corked
wine. Ian's post indicated that never happens; in these cases, it did
- that was the entire point of my post.

- Mark W.

"Craig Winchell/GAN EDEN Wines" > wrote in message link.net>...
> "Mark Willstatter" > wrote in message
> om...
> > Ian Hoare > wrote in message
> >. ..
> > > >One more thing, why do you say the cork introduced the microbes into
> > > >the wineries? My understanding is the microbes are found in more than
> > > >just cork trees and that they are rather common.
> > >
> > > That may be true, but you don't normally store wine in contact with
> cabbage
> > > stalks, or whatever or keep them lying around the winery. As Michael (P)
> > > says, if you have a contaminated barrel or whatever, ALL wines made from
> it
> > > will be corked, and that is NOT what happens, you tend to get one or two
> > > bottles corked. That makes it obvious that the contamination HAS to come
> > > from one of three places:- a) bottle, b) cork c) the capsule. Which of
> these
> > > three has its hand up?
> >
> > Ian, you must not have followed the news out of several afflicted
> > California wineries in the past couple of years. As the folks at BV,
> > Hanzell and Gallo Sonoma (other labels including Rancho Zabaco, Frei
> > Brothers and others I don't remember) can tell you, cellar TCA
> > contamination does happen. Just about any wood product can host the
> > mold that leads to TCA, from cardboard to wooden barrel racks to the
> > barrels themselves. Add chlorine use in the winery and you have the
> > recipe for (as you say) many, many corked bottles - exactly what has
> > happened at these wineries. So in these cases, that *is* what
> > happened. According to this article, which you might want to read,
> > http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Da...5,2240,00.html, *all
> > twenty* bottles the Wine Spectator received from that Gallo facility
> > were corked, at an average 3 parts per trillion - perhaps not high
> > enough to be identified by those of us blessedly insensitive but still
> > plenty corked enough to hurt the wine.
>
> Nobody ever said that TCA can't exist in the winery. As I said in a
> previous post, since wine is typically blended and mixed in California prior
> to bottling, one would expect such TCA to be uniform in all bottles from
> that tank, since the tank contents are homogeneous, whereas the big problem
> is not low levels of TCA homogeneously throughout the bottling, but rather
> the 10% or so of noticebly corked bottles of wine. Some cellars have
> noticeble, and perhaps unacceptable levels of TCA, but that's not a problem
> for the industry, only for the individual wineries which experience the
> problem, if it compromises wine quality.
>
> Craig Winchell
> GAN EDEN Wines
>

Craig, what part of Ian's post - "As Michael (P) says, if you have a
contaminated barrel or whatever, ALL wines made from it will be
corked, and that is NOT what happens, you tend to get one or two
bottles corked" - did I misunderstand? The fact is, in the cases I
mentioned, thousands - more probably millions - of bottles were
affected. I don't know if you read the article at the link I posted
but 20 out of 20 bottles at the Wine Spectator and TCA at between 2.5
and 5.6 ppt (on a small sample) and averaging 3 ppt sounds to me like
cellar contamination caused one hell of a lot of detectably corked
wine. Ian's post indicated that never happens; in these cases, it did
- that was the entire point of my post.

- Mark W.

"Mark Willstatter" > wrote in message
om...
> "Craig Winchell/GAN EDEN Wines" > wrote in message
link.net>...
> > "Mark Willstatter" > wrote in message
> > om...
> > > Ian Hoare > wrote in message
> > >. ..
> > > > >One more thing, why do you say the cork introduced the microbes
into
> > > > >the wineries? My understanding is the microbes are found in more
than
> > > > >just cork trees and that they are rather common.
> > > >
> > > > That may be true, but you don't normally store wine in contact with
> > cabbage
> > > > stalks, or whatever or keep them lying around the winery. As Michael
(P)
> > > > says, if you have a contaminated barrel or whatever, ALL wines made
from
> > it
> > > > will be corked, and that is NOT what happens, you tend to get one or
two
> > > > bottles corked. That makes it obvious that the contamination HAS to
come
> > > > from one of three places:- a) bottle, b) cork c) the capsule. Which
of
> > these
> > > > three has its hand up?
> > >
> > > Ian, you must not have followed the news out of several afflicted
> > > California wineries in the past couple of years. As the folks at BV,
> > > Hanzell and Gallo Sonoma (other labels including Rancho Zabaco, Frei
> > > Brothers and others I don't remember) can tell you, cellar TCA
> > > contamination does happen. Just about any wood product can host the
> > > mold that leads to TCA, from cardboard to wooden barrel racks to the
> > > barrels themselves. Add chlorine use in the winery and you have the
> > > recipe for (as you say) many, many corked bottles - exactly what has
> > > happened at these wineries. So in these cases, that *is* what
> > > happened. According to this article, which you might want to read,
> > > http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Da...5,2240,00.html, *all
> > > twenty* bottles the Wine Spectator received from that Gallo facility
> > > were corked, at an average 3 parts per trillion - perhaps not high
> > > enough to be identified by those of us blessedly insensitive but still
> > > plenty corked enough to hurt the wine.
> >
> > Nobody ever said that TCA can't exist in the winery. As I said in a
> > previous post, since wine is typically blended and mixed in California
prior
> > to bottling, one would expect such TCA to be uniform in all bottles from
> > that tank, since the tank contents are homogeneous, whereas the big
problem
> > is not low levels of TCA homogeneously throughout the bottling, but
rather
> > the 10% or so of noticebly corked bottles of wine. Some cellars have
> > noticeble, and perhaps unacceptable levels of TCA, but that's not a
problem
> > for the industry, only for the individual wineries which experience the
> > problem, if it compromises wine quality.
> >
> > Craig Winchell
> > GAN EDEN Wines
> >
>
> Craig, what part of Ian's post - "As Michael (P) says, if you have a
> contaminated barrel or whatever, ALL wines made from it will be
> corked, and that is NOT what happens, you tend to get one or two
> bottles corked" - did I misunderstand. The fact is, in the cases I
> mentioned, thousands - more probably millions - of bottles were
> affected. I don't know if you read the article at the link I posted
> but 20 out of 20 bottles at the Wine Spectator and TCA at between 2.5
> and 5.6 ppt (on a small sample) and averaging 3 ppt sounds to me like
> cellar contamination caused one hell of a lot of detectably corked
> wine. Ian's post indicated that never happens; in these cases, it did
> - that was the entire point of my post.

OK, since you took the time to post this twice (grin), I'll answer you. I
think that Ian was simply saying, in his own style, that what you're
proposing is not an industrywide problem, but that the cork problem is an
industrywide and insidious problem. I think you might have misunderstood
the tenor of Ian's post, and I think Ian and I both misunderstood your
refutation of Ian's statement as being an attempt at refuting the sense of
Ian's post. Yes, what you're suggesting has happened, as Ian and I will
both attest, and I apologize for having continued to address your post as
being nonsense. If it didn't attempt to refute Ian's meaning, that the
industrywide problem is one of corks and not one of cellars, but instead was
meant only to convey that there have been instances of introduction of TCA
from some cellars, then it's a valid statement. If, on the other hand, the
opposite was true, and you're saying cellar introduction is where most of
the TCA problem industrywide has occurred, then it's a false statement. As
I prefer to believe that you are simply a literalist, I'll apologize.

Craig Winchell
GAN EDEN Wines

>
> - Mark W.

"Ian Hoare" > wrote in message
...
>
> Bergerac is of marginal importance for you in the USA

Au contraire, mon frere.

Salut/Hi Steve Grant,

le/on 13 Feb 2004 23:01:51 EST, tu disais/you said:-

>"Ian Hoare" > wrote in message
.. .
>>
>> Bergerac is of marginal importance for you in the USA
>
>Au contraire, mon frere.

OK, OK.;-))) Where d'you live that you see a decent Bergerac? Quite a few
regulars here will be beating a path to your door!

--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website

"Ian Hoare" > wrote in message
...
>
> OK, OK.;-))) Where d'you live that you see a decent Bergerac? Quite a few
> regulars here will be beating a path to your door!
>
Hi Ian
I've no idea what constitutes a decent Bergerac but browsing the wine
monopoly in Norway there were 18 wines, of which I've picked
Domaine de la Monestière 2001
Ch. Haut Sarthes 1999
Ch. de La Colline 1999
Ch. Monestier La Tou 2000
Ch. Bel-Air 2000
Ch. Bicoty 1998
Ch. Roque-Peyre 2001
Ch. Grinou 1999
Ch. Puy-Servain Terrement 2000
Ch. Grinou Réserve 1998

Any idea on these?

Anders

"Ian Hoare" > wrote in message
...
> Salut/Hi Steve Grant,
>
> le/on 13 Feb 2004 23:01:51 EST, tu disais/you said:-
>
> >"Ian Hoare" > wrote in message
> .. .
> >>
> >> Bergerac is of marginal importance for you in the USA
> >
> >Au contraire, mon frere.
>
> OK, OK.;-))) Where d'you live that you see a decent Bergerac? Quite a few
> regulars here will be beating a path to your door!

New York. Sorry, can't remember where I found Chateau Montus -- had to have
been at auction. I do remember enjoying the '96.

You're right, though -- it *is* hard to find Bergeracs.

"Craig Winchell/GAN EDEN Wines" > wrote in message link.net>...
>
> OK, since you took the time to post this twice (grin), I'll answer you.

Yeah - cockpit errors, once with a question mark, once without.
Whoops ;^)

, I'll answer you. I
> think that Ian was simply saying, in his own style, that what you're
> proposing is not an industrywide problem, but that the cork problem is an
> industrywide and insidious problem. I think you might have misunderstood
> the tenor of Ian's post, and I think Ian and I both misunderstood your
> refutation of Ian's statement as being an attempt at refuting the sense of
> Ian's post. Yes, what you're suggesting has happened, as Ian and I will
> both attest, and I apologize for having continued to address your post as
> being nonsense. If it didn't attempt to refute Ian's meaning, that the
> industrywide problem is one of corks and not one of cellars, but instead was
> meant only to convey that there have been instances of introduction of TCA
> from some cellars, then it's a valid statement. If, on the other hand, the
> opposite was true, and you're saying cellar introduction is where most of
> the TCA problem industrywide has occurred, then it's a false statement. As
> I prefer to believe that you are simply a literalist, I'll apologize.
>
I agree with you that in the sense a cellar TCA problem is gone once
it's fixed but TCA will be with us as long as we have corks. I'd
point out, though, that there will probably also always be cellar TCA
problems one place or another, so long as there are wood products in
cellars. And when a high volume facility like Gallo Sonoma gets
infested, I'd guess they can put out enough bottles to compete with
cork-caused TCA in terms of numbers. And who knows how many cellar
TCA problems are out there causing sub-threshold TCA levels that make
wines less than they could be?

- Mark W.

Salut/Hi Steve Grant,

le/on 14 Feb 2004 19:08:46 EST, tu disais/you said:-


>> >> Bergerac is of marginal importance for you in the USA
>> >
>> >Au contraire, mon frere.
>>
>> OK, OK.;-))) Where d'you live that you see a decent Bergerac? Quite a few
>> regulars here will be beating a path to your door!
>
>New York. Sorry, can't remember where I found Chateau Montus -- had to have
>been at auction. I do remember enjoying the '96.

Ahem,.... I'll forgive you this once, because they ARE both administratively
in South-West France. But you must admit it rather proves my point;-)) Ch
Montus is in Madiran, about 100 miles south of Bergerac.

>You're right, though -- it *is* hard to find Bergeracs.

But much easier if you include Cahors, Madiran, Jurançon, Gaillac and half
of SW france as being Bergerac (Gotcha!!).

>

--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website

Ian Hoare wrote:

> >New York. Sorry, can't remember where I found Chateau Montus -- had
> to have
> >been at auction. I do remember enjoying the '96.
>
> Ahem,.... I'll forgive you this once, because they ARE both
> administratively
> in South-West France. But you must admit it rather proves my point;-))
> Ch
> Montus is in Madiran, about 100 miles south of Bergerac.

*chuckle* Having made that same mistake once (fortunately to an American
importer), I can feel Steve's pain, so to speak. If it weren't for
Edmond Rostand, we probably wouldn't know the name at all.

>
>
> >You're right, though -- it *is* hard to find Bergeracs.
>
> But much easier if you include Cahors, Madiran, Jurançon, Gaillac and
> half
> of SW france as being Bergerac (Gotcha!!).

I think the easiest Bergerac to locate here in the US is Monbazillac,
but even that takes some work.

Mark Lipton

"Mark Lipton" > wrote in message
...
> I think the easiest Bergerac to locate here in the US is Monbazillac,
> but even that takes some work.

I'm pretty sure I've seen that at Trader Joe's.

Tom S

Salut/Hi Tom S,

le/on Mon, 16 Feb 2004 15:37:33 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

>
>"Mark Lipton" > wrote in message
...
>> I think the easiest Bergerac to locate here in the US is Monbazillac,
>> but even that takes some work.
>
>I'm pretty sure I've seen that at Trader Joe's.

Bit like saying "I'm pretty sure I've seen Napa valley at Géant".

Monbazillac varies between vile and sublime. Because the wine is of only
marginal interest in the US (IMO about what is marginal), the chances for an
american knowing whether a particular wine uses Muscadelle or not, is
minimal. However, s/he WILL know probably which californian producer had has
TCA problems in the cellar! In my case, my level of information is
diametrically opposite. That's really what I was trying to say to Mark.

--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website

"Craig Winchell/GAN EDEN Wines" > wrote in message ink.net>...
>>
> OK, you can do that. I'll work on eliminating the problem in my wines, and
> you can waste time looking for the mythical "second shooter".
>
> Craig Winchell
> GAN EDEN Wines

You may want to check this out:

http://www.vwm-online.com/Magazine/A...30_No1/TCA.htm

A particularly interesting paragraph:

Routine quality control tasting of bottled wine to check for TCA
cork-taint during this same period by the winery's French-born
winemaker, Daniel Docher, disclosed a pattern suggesting something was
wrong. "We then sent eight bottles of the chardonnay to ETS
Laboratories [in St. Helena] for analysis," Arnold recounts. "Five of
the eight were found to contain measurable concentrations of TCA, at
about 2.0 parts per trillion."

This is from TCA taint they traced back to a non-cork related sources.

The whole article is a very interesting read.


Andy

Excellent article...extremely interesting.

thanks

dick

"JEP" > wrote in message
om...
> "Craig Winchell/GAN EDEN Wines" > wrote in message
ink.net>...
> >>
> > OK, you can do that. I'll work on eliminating the problem in my wines,
and
> > you can waste time looking for the mythical "second shooter".
> >
> > Craig Winchell
> > GAN EDEN Wines
>
> You may want to check this out:
>
> http://www.vwm-online.com/Magazine/A...30_No1/TCA.htm
>
> A particularly interesting paragraph:
>
> Routine quality control tasting of bottled wine to check for TCA
> cork-taint during this same period by the winery's French-born
> winemaker, Daniel Docher, disclosed a pattern suggesting something was
> wrong. "We then sent eight bottles of the chardonnay to ETS
> Laboratories [in St. Helena] for analysis," Arnold recounts. "Five of
> the eight were found to contain measurable concentrations of TCA, at
> about 2.0 parts per trillion."
>
> This is from TCA taint they traced back to a non-cork related sources.
>
> The whole article is a very interesting read.
>
>
> Andy