The festive season is made ever so joyful with family and friends dropping in for meals, and it’s the time of the year I tend to dig about in the cellar and share wines I’ve been carefully maturing.
It’s always a gamble, though. As wonderful as old wine can be, the quality of a bottle can be hit and miss, especially as anything from the early 2000s and beyond is likely to be sealed with a cork.
It’s sad but true that often the joy of opening an old, and possibly rare, bottle is ruined by the cork.
Cork is a natural product, so no two are the same (as opposed to screwcaps, but the debate over their respective virtues is for another day) and over time a case of the same wine is subject to wide bottle variation as tiny amounts of oxygen flow through the corks.
This means that each bottle in a case will be at a different stage in its development, regardless of how well they’ve been stored.
In fact, it’s common practice at tastings of older wines to pour a bottle into every second glass around the table so tasters can try their neighbour’s sample if there’s a big difference between bottles.
There’s also the lottery of a wine being corked. That’s not to say a crumbly cork or various levels of oxidation or premature ageing, but cork taint – or the presence of TCA.
Cork taint is caused by the chemical 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA), which is the product of a chemical reaction between naturally occurring fungi and chlorophenol compounds.
Interestingly, chlorophenols don’t occur naturally in cork and it is thought they are introduced by pesticides sprayed onto cork trees or added during a chlorine-based sterilisation process.
Here’s what to look for in a corked wine: dank, wet-dog cardboard aromas, with the wine’s fruit characters stripped away on the nose and palate.
Cork taint is not to be mistaken with a the flavour of cork or oxidised vinegar-like notes that sometimes arise and it has nothing to do with the cork’s structure – a cork that crumbles as you twist the corkscrew in (or out) can still keep a wine perfectly.
It’s a generally accepted fact that between 5 and 8 per cent of all bottles sealed with cork are affected with TCA, so don’t take it personally if the cork gods frown on you this Christmas period.
There’s some good news in all of this: TCA won’t hurt you, and you are entitled to a replacement bottle if it has ruined your wine.
If you think a bottle is corked, stick the cork back into the bottle and either contact the winery directly or take the wine to the wine shop where you bought it.
In my experience, when contacting the winery directly, you’ll either be asked to send in the bottle with what wine remains for assessment or to give your details and they’ll simply send you a replacement bottle. If they have enough stock, the replacement wine might even be from the same vintage.
If you take the wine to where you bought it, the merchant will often replace it on the spot and take up the issue on your behalf.
One important note: if you have a corked wine and you’re keen to get it replaced, act straight away – it’s easier for the winemaker or merchant to identify the problem. Plus, if it turns out the wine isn’t corked after all, the wine might still be fresh enough to drink.
And one final thing. Please don’t go digging into your cellar after you’ve had a few, no matter how good the idea is at the time. I’ve regretted doing just that too many times to let anyone else make the same mistakes!
Taste this
Taltarni Three Monks Fumé Blanc 2010
(Tasmania, Pyrenees)
$24.99; 12.5%
4/5
A sav blanc that’s all style and grace, rather than pungent and in your face. Sixty per cent of the wine was fermented in oak barrels to add complexity and texture. Complex it is, with aromas of lemongrass, peach, tropical fruits, green apple and slightly funky notes. On the palate you’ll find vibrant lime, lemongrass, passionfruit, grapefruit and savoury flavours. It has a supple, creamy texture and bright acid that’s chalky and grippy.
Food match \ Cucumber fritters with yoghurt and dill
Dog Point Vineyards Chardonnay 2009
(Marlborough, NZ)
$35; 14%
4.5/5
Dog Point is one of the region’s better exponents of sav blanc. This spent 18 months in French oak barrels before bottling. White peach, oatmeal, cantaloupe, citrus, tropical fruit and honey aromas leap from the glass. It has balance, with stonefruit flavours, spice and vanilla oak that are balanced out by grapefruit-flavoured acid. These flavours flow on to an impressive, lengthy finish.
Food match \ Fish cakes
Yangarra Shiraz 2009
(McLaren Vale) $25; 14.5%
4.5/5
Yangarra’s wines are made using organic practices (organic certification is expected next year) and its vineyards sit at the northern, cooler end of McLaren Vale. It has a bouquet of cardamom spice, raspberry, blackberry, ferrous minerality, plum and a suggestion of vanilla. Sweet and sour flavours of blood plum, ironstone, blackberry and a cranberry-like sour note are medium-bodied. It’s a wine of balance and substance – light and bright with sandy tannins. It finishes long with spice and berry flavours.
Food match \ Steak-and-kidney pie
Fonty’s Pool Pinot Noir 2010
(Pemberton) $22; 13.5%
4/5
Pemberton is the coolest of WA’s wine regions and is capable of producing lovely pinot. It’s nicely perfumed, with aromas of cherry, citrus, spice, grape stalks, rhubarb and beetroot. It has nice stalky/sappy flavours, along with minerality, oak spice, raspberry and cherry flavours. The stalky theme continues with nice tannic grip in the mouth, along with sour cherry and citrus-flavoured acid.
Food match \ Duck rillettes
Love a bargain?
Armchair Critic Over & Under Chardonnay 2010
(Tumbarumba)
$12.99; 13%
3.5/5
I’m quite a fan of Tumbarumba chardonnay, and this offering from the McWilliams wines portfolio is a ripping wine for the price. It smells and tastes of citrus and melon, apple, nuts and subtle toasty oak. It’s well balanced and structured, especially at less than $15 a bottle, and dangerously easy to drink. There’s tasty stonefruit and grapefruit flavours on the finish. Don’t serve it too cold, either – it got better as it warmed up out of the fridge.
Food match \ Roast chicken