FLINTY, big, earthy, charming, smoky, lean, brilliant, delicate,
raspberryish鈥攖here鈥檚 no end to the ways of describing one of the world鈥檚
favourite tipples. But there are some terms that you will never see on the label
of a wine bottle. If your flinty Loire white is going brown it is maderised, a
problem caused by too much oxygen getting into the bottle. And if your claret
tastes musty, the wine is corked, a problem caused by traces of an obnoxious
chemical.
The likely culprit behind both cases is the wine cork, traditionally punched
out of the stripped bark of the cork oak, Quercus suber. As with any
natural material, the quality of cork varies. Small defects may let oxygen into
the bottle, and the cork can be tainted with mould while on the tree.
The obvious solution is to replace natural cork with a synthetic alternative.
But this provokes fierce debates among wine buffs. Some say that fine wines
cannot mature properly without natural cork, while others argue that ordinary
wines taste fresher when they are sealed with synthetic corks.
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Natural cork has been used to seal wine bottles for about three centuries.
Grown in western Mediterranean countries such as Portugal, it is easy to
compress and maintains its elasticity inside the neck of a bottle, creating a
seal.
But if cork is compressed too much, it loses its elasticity and does not
provide an effective seal. And wormholes, scratches or ridges can let too much
air into the wine, leading to the dreaded maderisation.
Hence the appeal of alternatives. Screw-top caps have been used to seal wine
bottles since the 1970s. The seal they create is reliable, and a corked screw
top is unheard of. But they have never caught on.
Synthetic satisfaction
Synthetic corks, on the other hand, have been making significant inroads into
the wine market in the past five years. Made of synthetic plastics called
elastomers, they also keep their elasticity after they are compressed and
inserted into the neck of a wine bottle. And you pull them out with a corkscrew,
just like the real thing.
Synthetic corks solve many problems, says Brooke Hilton of SupremeCorq, the
world鈥檚 biggest manufacturers of synthetic corks based in Kent, Washington. They
never have wormholes, and their quality can be carefully controlled during
manufacture. The result is a seal that is more reliable, claims the company. It
is a message that is beginning to be accepted by many wine makers. More than 300
vineyards in Australia, Europe and the Americas now use the company鈥檚 synthetic
corks.
This year about 1 per cent of the world鈥檚 wine bottles had synthetic corks.
Britain鈥檚 supermarkets are in the vanguard of change, with about a tenth of the
wine bottles on the shelves of Marks & Spencer and Safeway having the new
corks. 鈥淲e鈥檝e had very few problems with synthetic corks,鈥� says Justin
Howard-Sneyd, a master of wine at the Safeway chain.
He says their adoption by supermarkets isn鈥檛 a cost-cutting measure since
synthetic corks are typically about 25 per cent more expensive than traditional
corks. But the quality of wines is more reliable and may even be better, says
Howard-Sneyd. 鈥淚鈥檝e tasted wine with a synthetic cork that was fresher and
fruitier than wines with a sound natural cork.鈥�
The cork industry, however, is fighting back. Its biggest problem is
preventing wines from being corked. In 1993, the industry, backed by funds from
the European Union, launched a major research programme called Quercus to
pinpoint the cause of the taint. The researchers found that the taste associated
with corked wine was caused by a chemical called trichloroanisole (TCA).
鈥淭CA is one of the commonest causes of off flavours in food and drink,鈥� says
Martin Hall of the Campden and Chorleywood Food Research Association, the
independent research organisation that coordinated the Quercus study. The
chemical is so repulsive that a few parts per trillion will make a wine taste
strange.
Just how TCA is formed is poorly understood. Until recently, many corks were
usually washed and sterilised with a solution of hypochlorite before they are
put into bottles, but this may make the problem worse. Researchers believe that
chlorine reacts with phenolic compounds in the cork to form chlorophenols.
Moulds that are naturally present in the air then turn these into
chloroanisoles, and notably TCA. 鈥淎lmost every cork we have ever analysed
contains some trace of TCA,鈥� says Mark Sefton of the Australian Wine Research
Institute in Adelaide. 鈥淏ut this is seldom transferred to the wine. It may be
that TCA only causes problems when contaminated parts of the cork are in direct
contact with wine.鈥� When the wine comes into contact with the cork, the TCA
leaches out.
The proportion of wines that are contaminated with TCA is greatly disputed.
鈥淭here are no firm stats on what proportion of wine is tainted by TCA,鈥� says
Sefton. The cork industry puts it around 1 per cent. Others put it in double
figures. Howard-Sneyd estimates that between 4 and 6 per cent of wine bottles
are corked. Often the taint is faint. 鈥淭he only thing the customers know is that
they don鈥檛 like the wine. And they don鈥檛 buy it again,鈥� he says. In June, the
industry commissioned new research to establish exactly how much wine is
corked.
Whatever the extent of the problem, the cork industry is trying to minimise
it by tightening its quality control. The Quercus researchers found that cork
bark taken from near the ground was more likely to be contaminated with TCA.
Next year, independent auditors will start to inspect cork processing factories
to ensure that they do not make corks from bark that was near the ground.
The industry has also stopped using hypochlorite washes to sterilise corks,
says Ian Perkins of the British cork importer Perkins Closures. 鈥淚鈥檓 optimistic
that these measures should deliver cuts in the level of TCA,鈥� says Perkins,
whose family has been importing corks since 1814.
But if supermarkets continue to move towards synthetic corks for everyday
wine, it could knock the bottom out of the cork market. The industry鈥檚
high-volume and high-value product is the wine cork. Once the corks have been
punched out, the remainder of the bark is crumbled for use in low-value products
such as floor tiles. Without the cork market, farmers may not find it profitable
to grow cork oak trees at all.
But there is still hope for the industry. Natural cork remains the preferred
choice for some wines, as good quality natural corks do allow far more air to
pass through the seal than synthetic corks. While too much oxygen can cause the
wine to become maderised, too little may prevent it ageing well. So the
permeability of corks is an advantage when it comes to laying down a fine wine
because it allows the wine to breathe.
And if you celebrate the millennium with champagne, you will find traditional
cork sealing the bottle. Traditional corks perform far better under pressure
than the synthetic variety. Of course, it is possible to find sparkling wine in
quarter-litre bottles with plastic stoppers. But don鈥檛 be surprised if your
celebrations lack fizz.
DETERMINED drinkers didn鈥檛 let up during that great American experiment,
Prohibition. With the sale of alcohol outlawed, parched citizens found that an
ideal way to hide their tipple from the police was to add fruit juices and
syrups. These creative combinations, which also made dire bootleg booze taste
better, added a modern twist to the cocktail. By the time Prohibition ended, the
cocktail party had become an institution.
Today, consensus has it that the most popular cocktail in the US is the
martini, a blend of dry gin and vermouth with an olive slung in. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been
around for years and changes with each generation,鈥� says Diane Dodd of the
Chicago Bartending School. 鈥淪ome are made with vodka, others with liqueurs.鈥�
Across the Atlantic, tastes have changed. Britons are now said to prefer Long
Island Iced Tea, a drink made from vodka, gin, rum, tequila and Triple Sec.
If these are among the top cocktails, the worst are grim. Of considerable
notoriety is the Cement Mixer, a mix of Baileys Irish Cream and lime juice,
which coagulates into a mush in the mouth. Most bartenders also have their own
horror stories. 鈥淚 came back from America and was asked to mix a BMW, which is
Baileys, Malibu and whisky,鈥� says Guy Minschall, winner of this year鈥檚 TGI
Friday鈥檚 World Bartender Championship. 鈥淲ho in their right mind would drink
that? People become sick as a dog the next day and then wonder why.鈥�
Probably the most revolting cocktail is Canada鈥檚 Sour Toe, served up in
Dawson City, Yukon. Courageous quaffers there find a human toe at the bottom of
their glass. The Sour Toe Cocktail Club is run today by Bill Holmes, who
welcomes about 1100 new members a year. With this scale of demand, and the odd
mishap when a raw recruit knocks back the entire concoction, Holmes needs a
steady stream of digits. 鈥淭oes are donated to the club by people who lose them
through frostbite, diabetes or lawnmower accidents,鈥� he says. 鈥淎ll the toes are
harvested prior to death. It鈥檚 important that we uphold the health code because
we have health inspectors in the club.鈥�
Reactions to the cocktail vary. 鈥淪ome people let the toe into their mouth and
swirl it around,鈥� says Holmes. 鈥淥thers let it touch their lips and then squeal.鈥�