Cork may be a problem but it’s not the only problem!

There is no doubt that most educated wine drinkers and enthusiasts are aware that today’s corks cause irreparable damage to an awful amount of wine. It was this damage and the consumers and wineries refusal to accept the situation that led to the search for alternative closures. However it’s reasonably safe to assume that the corks may be copping the blame for some other wine faults.

Some would say that’s poetic justice and that may well be, but that’s not the issue. Frequently on wine forums I read comments that state a wine was corked, but rarely do I see anything saying a wine was suffering from a fault that was not related to the cork. According to my own records, out of the last 1157 bottles I have seen opened and tried, 6.7% of them were suffering from cork taint or other cork related failures. The important bit is that a further 3.0% were suffering from non cork related faults. Therefore almost one third of dud bottle faults are not related to corks.

So what are these other faults? They fall into a number of categories. Some are a result of bad winemaking, some are caused by bacteria and then there is Brettanomyces which is actually a wild yeast which in low doses some people find attractive however many people feel it spoils the wine even once it is noticeable.

As “additives” are seen as nasty or unnecessary in many quarters there has been a move in recent years by many wineries to try and reduce the use of sulphur dioxide added to their wine. If the winemaker puts too much sulphur dioxide in a wine and it can cause all sorts of problems, the least of which is the smell which can be at best noticeable and at worst totally ruin the wine.

Sulphur dioxide is used in wine for good reason, in the correct amount it can solve many problems for the winemaker and is normally undetectable. Without it or without enough of it, wines can frequently exhibit some very nasty aromas and flavours as SO₂ inhibits the growth of some nasty organisms in wine. It also brightens the colours of reds and reduces oxidation.

The only real draw back in using SO₂ correctly is that in a small percentage of the population it may trigger an asthma attack and that’s why it’s disclosed on the label. Some people also blame it for headaches but it’s interesting to note that there is far more S0₂ in prepared coleslaw or fruit salad than in wine. Most reds contain no more than 100 parts per million at bottling and the level diminishes with age. (Getting over ‘bottle shock’ is partly a question of losing some of that sulphur dioxide.) Whites tend to have more than reds. Cooked and processed meats like salami have up to 260 ppm, sausages 500 ppm and dried fruit 3,000 ppm all of which are substantially more than wine.

There is no doubt that SO₂ is a very handy item for a winemaker and without enough of it many wines simply would not last and if there is not enough added there is a good chance the wine will become a problem in time. Technically that’s a winemaking fault and there are others too.

If the wine has a smell of rotten egg gas or H₂S there is a good chance poor winemaking is involved. Once you have excessive H₂S in wine they can react with other compounds to make the wine truly revolting, often due to the formation of malodours mercaptens and other compounds. These can make the wine smell like onions, burnt rubber, skunk, cauliflower etc. The technical names of some of these faults are difficult to get your mouth around, let alone the difficulty in identifying exactly what they are and their original cause so detail on these other faults will be left, possibly for a later article.

Up to now there is chance that many of the minor faults in wines have been blamed on the corks but as an increasing amount of wine is bottled under ROTE seals these other problems will show their true colours. Drinkers wont be able to go “its mildly corked” when the wine is sealed with a ROTE. To reiterate, according to my numbers non related cork issues are almost half as prevalent as cork problems. Over the longer term, these defects, many of which are winemaking faults will be eventually be seen in their true light. There is some ‘dirty winemaking’ going on; thankfully it’s not much in the scheme of things and hopefully a side benefit of the alternative seals will help reduce this practice too. Till then when you get an off bottle try and analyse if it is something other than a cork related issue.

As an aside, if you think that the additive SO₂ in red gives you a headache and you don’t get headaches from c-though then think again. It’s probably not the sulphur dioxide; it’s likely to be the histamines.

My thanks to Erl Happ of Happs and Three Hills Winery for some of the background information contained in this article.

Copyright © Ric Einstein 2003