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| | | | Cork Taint or TCA
Description: Cork taint is associated with TCA in wines. However TCA can be found in wines prior to bottling. TCA IS CAUSED BY BAD BARRELS.
Rating: 97
Category: Corks and Closures (list all categories)
Manufacturer: Barrels
Submitted By: Anomynous Winemaker ,
Total Reviews: 10
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| | Reviewed By
Web Master , Consultant
Review Date
08/27/04
Rating
Mixed
(top) | | REPORT ON CHLORANISOLE CONCENTRATIONS OF CALIFORNIA BOTTLED WINES
The time has come for the wine journals to report the chloranisole concentrations of California bottled wines.
The lack of publication of this data has two negative affects on winemakers. Firstly, it allows the media to say there is a culture of the cover up in the California wine industry. Secondly, it stops winemakers from making logistic changes that will eliminate chloranisoles before they taint the wines, wine press and winemakers.
Where is the science, given the claim by the academy that we have “world-class” wine science right here in California? Naturally US wine scientists understand chloranisoles. Is there a cover-up?
California winemakers were blind-side by TCA, PeCA, TeCA, metachlorphenol. When James Laube at Wine Spectator reported chloranisoles in California wines it read like a consumer action oriented report. That is driving winemaker underground, creating an even more critical need for knowledge about the chloranisole concentrations of California bottled wines.
What do wine academies know?
Googling TCA+University of Bordeaux+research returns the most information about wine. Some of it going back into the mid-1990s. it also shows that the cluster of vendors supporting the California wine industry have connections in Bordeaux. That is probably why vendors are solving this very big problem before our academies.
Likewise in Australia. Googling TCA+AWRI+research returns a robust body of referenced research. That is because Australian Wine Research Institute is conducting research on TCA. That has provided the logistical support to Australian winemakers that predicted TCA so that winemakers could change winemaking to avoid taints.
That is not true here in California. Googling TCA+UCD+researchreturns little to no research on the first page to our desktops. It could be there is no research that can be referenced. I found no reports on California bottled wines.
At one time UCD was interested in TCA. I found the British journal, The Economist, quoted a former UCD faculty member, Dr. Christian Butzke April 10, 2003 in connection with a story about how France's Atomic Energy Commission developed a method to remove TCA from cord with CO2. But he left and maybe so did interest in TCA.
TCA is too hot to touch. Maybe no one scientist is willing to conduct a national survey. Our prognostication is that the wine media could one day expose chloranisoles in wine in an unwanted way.
What do faculty and staff at UCD, Fresno State, Cal Poly, Cornell, Virginia Tech and elsewhere have to say about why we do not have the logistics change winemaking before the taint?
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| | Reviewed By
sonoma33 , Winemaker
Review Date
07/13/04
Rating
Liked
(top) | | I've got a TCA of 2.2 in my bottling tank so what do I do? The exceptional taster's threshold, the action level in the winery and the limit of the analyis are all right around 3.0. I'm not ready to requistion that new building at this point and suspect repeating the analysis would generate a different number. We're doing a deep cleaning and sanitation but I need more data in order to panic. Or should I skip to that now?
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| | | | Reporting to Enoloigx Winemaking Forum to establish that no TCA, PeCA or TeCA has been found whatsoever in 10s of thousands of cases of Paso Robles AVA red wines. Results are very statistically significant because we are talking about over 100,000 cases. Results apply to Bordeaux and Rhone varietals. We do not make red wines in Paso Robles.
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| | | | Annual Meeting in June included featured speaker on topic, most committees mentioned the issue. Yes a hot topic for which we have no committee.
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| | | | Many testing for chloranisoles, and once one has a program of cleaning and testing TCA is a non-issue. Cork taint is a real problem. Absolutely no problems in Oakville region equal to case of BV.
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| | Reviewed By
SC AVA 1 , Winemaker
Review Date
06/05/04
Rating
Liked
(top) | | Want to see issue resolved with media. Tested 100 year old wood cellar with old drains and all and found nothing, absolutely nothing for wine over 10 vintages.
Want to remind peers there are two classes of TCA problem, there is TCA from cord and there are chloranisoles from wood, the latter being the cause of the original stir in France.
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| | Reviewed By
anonymous in napa , Winemaker
Review Date
06/04/04
Rating
Liked
(top) | | This is a huge topic with very serious consequences for all parties involved. Before any judgements can be made about how the industry should proceed, the analysis performed at various labs should be evaluated for precision and reproducibility. When two different labs analyse the same wine with significantly different results, confusion and skepticism are the natural reactions. On such a serious topic, the wine industry and now critics who have chosen to explore the issue of TCA , need to be informed with "real" and reproducible data so that misinformation does not infect the industry. There should be some way that analytical proceedures and evaluation of data can be standardized by an independent panel of experts. The problem of TCA needs to be delt with quickly and effectively. The way to do this is with the best science available so that everybody is informed as to the scope of the problem as well as to the solutions to the problem.
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| | | | Winemakers, we need your help. When it comes to defects the hottest topic is TCA, trichloranisole. The topic is too hot to touch when it attracts the attention of national wine critics. The real problem is that when no one is talking then no one smart enough to know is talking to the critics. It is unfortunate because it places the real discussion in the shawdows. That in turn stops knowledge creation and creates disinformation. In essence the brightest minds in winemaking cannot help well meaning critics. My sense is that someone should inform the critics there are more problems with testing for TCA than there are real cases of winemakers with TCA that causes defects. Our own laboratory's aromatics analyst assess tiny amounts of esters in sur lies Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and will not let us sell results given the current state of analytical chemistry. Really we just on the edge of the kind of Precision needed to monitor wines. The limits of detection are 1 ppt. High limits of detection open the door to poor Precision. That is defined as both Reliability and Validity. If one is off so is the other at the limits. In the case of a laboratory that cannot detect 0.099 ppt assume the reliability is poor and roughly 2.5 times the standard deviatoin, i.e. 2.5 ppt. Validity is a separate question of replication, and one which is simply not addressed at all in the wine industry in every day testing. The time is now for someone to sit down with the media about TCA. That is because so much is at stake in the case of defect testing. Defective wines are rejected by buyers out of hand. I propose that winemakers enter this forum to offer up what they know now. Create an Log-In which is "Anomynous", create a unique word salad for a password. Click do not display my eMail, but enter one, and your identity will remain blind. I will contact the media once this forum is active enough to have it covered by Wine Business Monthly, Wine Spectator and others. Thanks in advance for your help in making California winemaking better.
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| | | | Winemakers, we need your help.
When it comes to defects the hottest topic is TCA, trichloranisole.
The topic is too hot to touch when it attracts the attention of national wine critics. The real problem is that when no one is talking then no one smart enough to know is talking to the critics.
It is unfortunate because it places the real discussion in the shawdows. That in turn stops knowledge creation and creates disinformation. In essence the brightest minds in winemaking cannot help well meaning critics.
My sense is that someone should inform the critics there are more problems with testing for TCA than there are real cases of winemakers with TCA that causes defects.
Our own laboratory's aromatics analyst assess tiny amounts of esters in sur lies Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and will not let us sell results given the current state of analytical chemistry. Really we just on the edge of the kind of Precision needed to monitor wines.
The limits of detection are 1 ppt. High limits of detection open the door to poor Precision. That is defined as both Reliability and Validity. If one is off so is the other at the limits. In the case of a laboratory that cannot detect 0.099 ppt assume the reliability is poor and roughly 2.5 times the standard deviatoin, i.e. 2.5 ppt. Validity is a separate question of replication, and one which is simply not addressed at all in the wine industry in every day testing.
The time is now for someone to sit down with the media about TCA. That is because so much is at stake in the case of defect testing. Defective wines are rejected by buyers out of hand.
I propose that winemakers enter this forum to offer up what they know now. Create an Log-In which is "Anomynous", create a unique word salad for a password. Click do not display my eMail, but enter one, and your identity will remain blind. I will contact the media once this forum is active enough to have it covered by Wine Business Monthly, Wine Spectator and others.
Thanks in advance for your help in making California winemaking better.
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| | | | This is a hot topic as a result of the coverage given to Beaulieu Vineyards wines. I n essence the story is that TCA can get in a wine through bad cord or barrels. And it is important to say that the cork companies know that this is a huge problem for the industry. What can we say, is it time to go to screwcaps?
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