Last year we paid a visit, with some friends, to Montreuil-Sur-Mer which is a charming walled town in the Pas de Calais department of Northern France. The town's ramparts were completed in the 9th century and you walk along their entirety. The town is no longer on the sea as the estuary of the Canche river has silted up.
Whilst our wives went shopping my friend and I went for a look at the wine cellars in the centre of town.
We found the Château Les Moines deep in the cellars and my friend bought me the 1995.We were warned by the vintner that he could not guarantee the quality of the wine.
http://chateau-les-moines.com/
I brought the wine back London to drink it with my friends on a suitable occasion. That occasion came last Saturday night. When I opened the wine, before my friends arrived, to decant it I could immediately smell the taint of a corked wine: it had the bitter and mouldy aroma of TCA or tri-chloroanisole.
TCA is chemical formed when a mould growing on a bottle cork reacts with chlorine based substance used in winemaking to produce a foul smell. TCA infuses into the wine to ruin it with a bitter taste which completely masks any fruit character in the wine. The wine is then termed as "corked". This is why many winemakers have turned to using plastic corks or screw cap enclosures.
Even though improvements have been made by using sterilised corks around 1 in 20 bottles of wine sealed with a traditional cork have the cork taint. Mould can grow on the inside of wooden barrels used to mature wine so the TCA taint can in theory affect a wine sealed with a screw cap or plastic cork; but I have never experienced this.
I tasted the wine as TCA is not poisonous and it was the worst case of cork taint that I have ever experienced. It was possible to taste the effects of ageing and my wife and I agreed that the wine would have been very good but for the effects of cork taint.
There are some anecdotes that cling film can be used the decanter to absorb the TCA in the wine. I had nothing to lose so I tried it. After some swirling around for about 15 minutes I smelt the wine again; the cork taint was still there. This does not work.
When my friend arrived I let him taste the wine and he agreed this was one of the worst cases of cork taint he had seen. He swallowed it but I spit it out.
I have a brother-in-law who cannot taste wine taint at all and will happily drink a corked wine. People have a varying sensitivity to cork taint. My wife and I are particularly sensitive. If you are insensitive to the aroma of cork taint your career as a wine taster will be limited.
Luckily, I had a reserve wine Domaine Faively Volnay Les Frémiets 1er Cru 2009 red. This was superb wine just ready for drinking. It had the silky smoothness typical of a Volnay and it had the distinctive flavour of a high quality red Burgundy. The style of this wine cannot be imitated and that is why it is worth paying a premium.
http://www.decanter.com/wine/reviews/domaine-faiveley-les-fremiets-volnay-1er-cru/578084#
During the week we opened a bottle of 2006 Domaine Giraud Châteauneuf-du-Pape Tradition red. This was glorious wine but it had a very, very slight taste of cork taint which came and went on the palate. I could not detect this taint when I smelt the wine, it was only on the palate after I had swirled it round my mouth. Most people would not notice the TCA but my wife confirmed it.
The wine was lovely, however, it had retained its purple colour and was just starting to lighten. It tasted exactly as described below and the strong tannin was beginning to soften. It was rather strong in alcohol at 15% and you could taste it was a little bit hot. Over a few hours we had finished the bottle which is something we would rarely do with a wine so strong in alcohol. After a couple of hours the slight cork taint had disappeared and the wine tasted perfect -almost.
http://www.luxuriousdrinks.com/en/2006-domaine-giraud-chateauneuf-du-pape.html
Beware , however, that not all that glisters is gold some Châteauneuf-du-Pape is not much better than bog standard red so buyer beware.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/dec/07/wine-chateauneuf-du-pape-review
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/france/north/724191/Montreuil-sur-Mer-Weekend-to-remember.html
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