If you have an untrained palate and you are just discovering the pleasure of drinking wine, you may not realize that some wines may be tainted or corked. Even the most expensive and highest quality wines can fall victim to cork taint, so it is important to know what to look for and how to prevent wine from becoming ‘corked’.

What is a ‘corked’ wine?

Wine is said to be corked because the cork used to top the bottle has been tainted with a fungus. Actually it is not the fungus that is the problem but rather the chemical that it produces, called TCA or 2,4,6-trichloroanisole. TCA naturally occurs in tree barks but it is the contact with the chlorine in the bleach used for sanitizing the cork that contributes to the wine being corked. This causes the wine to have a very unpalatable taste that may or may not be too obvious once a wine bottle is opened.

How do you know if a wine is ‘corked’?

It is very easy for wine lovers to spot a corked wine. The taste will be unbalanced, without the customary fruitiness and will be very unsuitable to drink. If left alone for a few hours, a corked wine may give off unpleasant aromas, such as the smell of mushrooms, mold, wet cardboard or wet dogs. And the wine will taste bitter.

Preventing corked wine

Up until recently, cork has been the preferred seal of choice for wines. The inherent properties of cork make it the best wine bottle topper. Cork is very resilient and can be compressed to provide an airtight seal. It is basically impenetrable by liquid or oil. It has low density because its cells are air-filled. And cork absorbs sound and vibration. The industry has developed a chlorine-free cork treatment process that reduced cork taint to just 2 percent of all bottles of wine produced.

Alternative wine seals

Nonetheless, there are alternatives to cork. The wine industry is now using solutions such as screw on bottle caps (AKA ‘stelvin’), cork sterilization using microwaves or using man-made corks or bottle caps like those used for beer. If you wish to prevent wine from being corked, then select wines that are sealed with these alternative types.

Careful wine storage

You can do something to your wine collection to prevent cork tainting. You can store your wine in the coolest section of your house if you do not have a cellar. Wrap your wine bottles individually in newspaper before packing them in polystyrene foam fruit boxes to keep the temperature stable. Under your stairs will be a good place, as long as loud noises and vibration are not present. If your collection is considerable, you may want to look into investing in a wine cabinet.

Know how long you can store your wines. Generally quality white wines will store from zero to four years, while the reds can be kept from five to twenty years. The new wines must be consumed as soon as possible.

While you are not to disturb your wine collection until you need to pick up some bottles, it is very important that you keep the storage area very quiet, odor free and very clean. Do not allow dust to gather around the storage area and collect around the bottles as this is an invitation for mold to propagate in the same way that dust may invite insects and mice that can gnaw on the newspaper wrapping, bottle labels and most importantly the cork stopper.