I’m not sure how well versed everyone here is on wine defects, but for me it was one of the first things that got me interested in wine oddly enough, “wait you mean people sell a product they know might be spoiled and I’m just supposed to be able to tell?!”
Cork taint was the first defect I was exposed to, but it’s taken years for me to really detect it, my mom and I are not very sensitive while my sister and dad are very naturally attuned to it.
For those unfamiliar, cork taint is a defect in wine that is associated with fungi like Aspergillus and Penicillium, it’s a compound called 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA for short). These fungi are naturally occurring in the cork and all over the world and pose no pathogenic risk to humans.
Getting to my question: there was a while where wineries used chlorinated water and the epidemic of tainted wines was astounding. The fungi could turn the chlorinated water into TCA and did so with a lot of regularity.
When I first learned about cork taint someone said, “it smells like baby carrots.” And I thought, “wow that is fucking weird.” But baby carrots are cut with chlorinated jets of water!
Well it’s about two decades later and I’ve had cork taint show up in baby carrots and other strange places! This evening a chicken alfredo from Costco had chicken that was cork tainted, the rest of the Alfredo was untainted, just the chicken, I assume it had been infested at the processing facility (which was probably very clean).
Over the years it’s shown up in other places too, it was famously infesting the old UCDavis oenology building and I’ve even smelled it in some wineries/tasting rooms!
I know it’s shown up in other food too, I think I had it on a frozen “artisan” pizza once.
Just curious if other wine lovers have had this experience!
For 15 years, Athan Zafirov has traveled the vineyards around the world and worked with some of the greatest chefs including Francois Duc and Alan Brown.
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