How we tried to rescue a corked 1st growth Bordeaux and failed!

The bottle was a 1995 Château Haut-Brion, stored in our friend's wine cabinet in Chicago, patiently waiting for our visit.

We arrived in Chicago on a Thursday night and it was decided that we would taste the wine the following evening. As the wine was from a great vintage and highly rated, we were expecting a memorable moment.

“This wine has been brilliant on every occasion I have tasted it”, said Parker on the 1995. “More accessible and forward than the 1996, it possesses a saturated ruby/purple color, as well as a beautiful, knock-out set of aromatics, consisting of black fruits, vanillin, spice, and wood-fire smoke. Multidimensional and rich, with layers of ripe fruit, and beautifully integrated tannin and acidity, this medium to full-bodied wine is a graceful, seamless, exceptional Haut-Brion that should drink surprisingly well young.”

But as soon as we popped the cork, the bad news jumped at our nose: the wine was corked! We took a small sip to confirm the verdict and it was unmistakably bad. Sad, sad, sad!

But then I remembered a New York Times article that suggested a way to rescue a corked wine:

Mr. Waterhouse said that the obnoxious, dank flavor of a “corked” wine, which usually renders it unusable even in cooking, can be removed by pouring the wine into a bowl with a sheet of plastic wrap.

“It's kind of messy, but very effective in just a few minutes,” he said. The culprit molecule in infected corks, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, is chemically similar to polyethylene and sticks to the plastic.

The experiment was worth trying, what could we lose? We took a large bowl, lined it with plastic wrap, and poured a small amount of the wine into the bowl. Then, after 5 minutes or so, we compared the wine from the bowl with the wine from the bottle. You could definitively detect some differences between the two. The bad chemical taste was somewhat smoothed out in the wine from the bowl, but sadly, it didn't make the wine more drinkable. Maybe the plastic wrap was able to catch some of the molecules but not all of them. And maybe we should try that experiment again but only with a wine that is marginally flawed.

Technorati tags: wine food & drink

Dunking iron knives, silver spoons, copper pennies, golden rings in wine, and what about the Wine Wand?

It all began when Harold McGee received a Wine Wand from a colleague, an intriguing device said “to accelerate the aerating process of wine by replicating the natural frequencies of air and oxygen, and infusing them into the wine.”

The wand is just one of several wine-enhancement devices that claim to age and soften wine in seconds. The Cle du Vin is another curious one. “Clef du Vin, when dipped into a glass of wine, the patented metal alloy on the tip replicates the aging process. It will age the wine one year for each second the alloy is in contact with the wine. Two seconds equals two years from now, three seconds equals three years from now, etc.” says the marketing literature.

To get a definitive opinion on these accessories, McGee invited two good friends, Andrew Waterhouse, professor of wine chemistry at the University of California, Davis, and Darrell Corti, an influential wine retailer from Sacramento, for a tasting experiment.

Mr. Corti concluded that the Cle was just a very expensive version of the copper penny trick.

For Mr. Waterhouse, the elimination of sulfur aromas was all that these accessories had to offer. Copper, silver and gold are all known to react directly with the sulfur compounds found in wine.

“A number of sulfur compounds are present in wine in traces and have an impact on flavor because they're very potent,” he said. “Some are unpleasant and some contribute to a wine's complexity. You can certainly dispose of these in five minutes with a little oxygen and a small area of metal catalyst to speed the reactions up, and change your impression of the wine.”

Now what about corked wines?

Well, Mr. Waterhouse offered a useful tip: simply pour the wine into a bowl with a sheet of plastic wrap.

“It’s kind of messy, but very effective in just a few minutes,” he said. “The culprit molecule in infected corks, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, is chemically similar to polyethylene and sticks to the plastic.” I can't wait to try it.

Here is the full article: For a Tastier Wine, the Next Trick Involves ....

Technorati tags: wine food & drink