Wine gift – To Cork or Not To Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science, and the Battle for the Wine Bottle
Ask the Barman: Taking tips from the Greek god of wine – Jerusalem Post
Eyal Dobinsky explains how he uses his wealth of knowledge to bring fine reds and whites to the masses at his intimate TA wine bar, Juno. Even though Eyal Dobinsky spends his days, or more accurately nights, serving alcoholic drinks to the discerning
Milwaukee native eases wine worries in New York City restaurant – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Let’s say you are having a big night out at Gotham Bar and Grill, one of New York City’s best restaurants. And let’s just say the wine list, which has over 700 selections, is giving you an anxiety attack. You are mopping your Midwestern brow, sweating the
To Cork or Not To Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science, and the Battle for the Wine Bottle
In Judgment of Paris, George M. Taber masterfully chronicled the historic 1976 wine tasting when unknown California wines defeated top French ones, marking a major turning point in wine history. Now he explores the most controversial topic in the world of wine: What product should be used to seal a bottle? Should it be cork, plastic, glass, a screwcap, or some other type of closure still to be invented?
For nearly four centuries virtually every bottle of wine had a cork in it. But starting in the 1970s, a revolution began to topple the cork monopoly. In recent years, the rebellion has been gathering strength. Belatedly, the cork industry began fighting back, while trying to retain its predominant position. Each year 20 billion closures go onto wine bottles, and, increasingly, they are not corks.
The cause of the onslaught against cork is an obscure chemical compound known as TCA. In amounts as low as several parts per trillion, the compound can make a $400 bottle of wine smell like wet newspaper and taste equally bad. Such wine is said to be “corked.” While cork’s enemies urge people to throw off the old and embrace new closures, millions of wine drinkers around the world are still in love with the romance of the cork and the ceremony of opening a bottle.
With a thorough command of history, science, winemaking, and marketing, Taber examines all sides of the debate. Along the way, he collects a host of great characters and pivotal moments in the production, storage, and consumption of wine, and paints a truly satisfying portrait of a wholly intriguing controversy. As Australian winemaker Brian Croser describes it: “It’s scary how passionate people can be on this topic. Prejudice and extreme positions have taken over, and science has often gone out the window.”
Customer Review: An interesting book with a limited audience
To really enjoy this book I think you need to like wine, have some interest in the chemistry of wine, and enjoy stories of marketplace battles between products. The book worked for me, but many will find parts of it uninteresting.
The cork has a long, generally distinguished tradition as a wine bottle stopper. But in the last three decades poor process control started to allow corks tainted with a foul-tasting contaminant to reach market, and the “corked” bottle of wine became an increasing challenge to vintners.
This set off a wave of entrepreneurs trying to build a better “cork” (or at least a better seal). The book tells the story of many brands, and their challenges, successes, and failures. Many fell by the wayside, but several are still expanding in the marketplace, each having its proponents and detractors. Ultimately, there is probably no ideal stopper for every bottle. Different approaches may apply to different wines with different aging requirements and different life expectancies. And wines may need to be made differently depending on the stopper chosen.
While the need for new stoppers seemed obvious five or ten years ago, corked bottles are clearly less of a problem in recent years. At the end the author explains how the cork industry has brought this about by cleaning up its act. So cork is likely to remain the stopper of choice for wines intended for years of bottle aging for some time to come. But as wine production expands the need for seals that don’t rely on the bark production of some old oak trees is certain to increase. The battle for that market will continue. At least as long as bottles hold out against bags in boxes …
Customer Review: Fantastic read
I’m a wine industry professional and this book was packed with new information that was fascinating while not being overly technical. I think my favorite parts were little facts about TCA 2,4,6. I highly recommend reading this if you ever have to deal with the question of cork vs screw cap. However it doesn’t draw a definite conclusion but gives you enough information to formal an intelligent opinion.
