Fixing Corked Wines: A Do-It-Yourself Guide
I have to admit that of late it seems I’ve encountered far fewer "corked" wines than in the past. I’ve no solid, scientific evidence to know this. It just seems this way.
What’s interesting is that as many lower priced wines transition to screwcaps it is the mid priced and higher priced wines more likely to bless us with that unique "hair of the dog" or "wet newspaper" aroma that comes with tainted corks.
I’ve sent wines back a number of times in restaurants due to cork taint. But when I encounter the problem at home I tend not to take the trouble to go back to where I got the wine and and ask for my money back or something new.
So, I was intrigued when I got an email from Ray Jordon of The Spirit of Wine Blog about his home-based experiments for removing the effects of cork taint. Jordon carried out a series of somewhat controlled experiments. His results are very interesting. It appears that there are ways to avoid tossing a corked wine down the sink, cussing, and tossing the bottle into the recycling at a velocity that will cause that satisfying sound of breakage.
I read about the plastic wrap method (the Brit eqivalent of SaranWrap) at jancisrobinson.com. Glad to see someone tested it somewhat sytematically. Back in the day, wineries sometimes used “deodorizing carbon”. It is a blunt instrument. All the goodies in plastic aren’t necessarily good to eat though. I’m just sayin’.