Wednesday Wine 101

Q.

Can you tell a wine is corked by smelling the cork?

A.

Yes. When a wine has been affected by TCA, the cork will often smell, well, more … corky.

For some time now, people in the know would roll their eyes at a diner smelling the cork when presented to him or her (but you know what they say about a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing). It was thought smelling the cork was the vinous equivalent of the emperor’s new clothes – a superfluous practice, one of show, and that nothing could really be detected from doing so.

If nothing is wrong with the wine, then the cork will smell of nothing, but if the wine is moderately to severely corked, we think it can be detected in the cork’s fragrance. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t nose the wine itself, but a corky smelling cork could give you ahead’s up that your wine is amiss, and not to stick your schnoz in their and go for a big whiff.

And don’t forget to look at the cork before smelling it: a cork showing mould, is dried out,  or has wine stains leaking from top to bottom are also indicators (but not absolutes!) the wine has seen better days.