Drinking wine is a pleasurable experience. It leaves us relaxed, at ease, cheerful, and packed full of antioxidants. But it doesn’t come without its risks. While there is the risk of overindulgence, a hangover, or a merlot stain on the brand new white carpet, there is also another risk that many of us don’t think about. This is the risk of cork taint. With the ability to stand between our wine and our enjoyment, cork taint can really contaminate the drinking experience.

What Is Cork Taint?

Cork taint is a term that refers to an undesirable taste or odor found in certain bottles of wine. While no one knows for sure what cork tastes like, with cork not being a hot item listed on the menus of fancy restaurants, a wine is labeled to have cork taint when it tastes a bit off. Some people describe wine with cork taint as tasting of must or of mildew while others describe it as tasting like damp newspapers (why these people know what must, mildew, or damp newspaper even taste like is a whole different issue altogether).

Not everyone who drinks wine tainted with cork may realize it; some wines hide it better than others, attempting to cover the taint with flavor and body. Some people may also find that they are less or more sensitive to it; one person may not even notice that their wine is tainted while another person may take one sip, spit, and – in soap opera fashion – throw their wine glass against the wall, pour their bottle down the drain, and go and shoot JR.

What Causes Cork Taint?

While cork taint ruins the entire bottle of wine, the consumers can’t fairly blame the cork, causing tiny tear drops to drip from its pores. The cork alone is not at fault. Instead, the main cause of cork taint is TCA, or 2,4,6-trichloroanisole for those of you who majored in chemistry. When a wine contains TCA, it adopts the damp and moldy odor and taste for which TCA is famous. TCA is harmless to humans – ingesting it won’t cause a person to widen their eyes and grab their throat like someone who has just been poisoned – but it is fatal to wine. Because TCA covers the wine’s natural aromas and flavors with the aromas and flavors of a foreign chemical, any wine with TCA is destined for a life in the drain of the kitchen sink.

Cork can often become tainted with TCA when fungus couples with the chlorphenol compound and becomes chloranisole. For any of you not wearing a pocket protector, this basically means that TCA can get on a cork when the cork is tainted with industrial pollutants present in things such as wood preservatives and pesticides. The role that industrial pollutants play has made cork taint more prevalent in the modern wine making world.