Tainted Love

By Warren Rojas

Taber educates wine lovers about modern stoppers.
Photography by Warren Rojas

Rather than putting a lid on the issue of proper stoppage, author George M. Taber attacks the state of wine preservation with his latest work, “To Cork or Not to Cork” (Scribner, $26).

Taber traces the problem of cork taint to 2,4,6-trichloroanisole—TCA for short—a chemical spoiler that’s plagued wine lovers for centuries but was only formally identified in 1981 by wine researcher Hans Tanner. “That’s the biggest fear winemakers have,” Taber estimated. “That they’re going to be condemned for a bad bottle of wine without someone realizing it’s corked.”

Paul Yohai still relishes the cork-pulling process, but admits that, with Stelvin closures, “I do not have to worry about a corked wine.” He tapped the 2003 or 2004 Fireblock Old Vine Grenache as a solid screw-cap wine, hailing the “provocative aromas of raspberry and strawberry, with hints of spice and tobacco” as the perfect addition to a spring barbecue.

Kathy Morgan can also appreciate the pop of a freshly opened wine—as long as it’s still good. “To me, nothing is less romantic than spoiled wine,” she argued. Morgan touts the 2005 Domaine Weinbach Riesling Cuvée Sainte Catherine ($45) as “a rich, dry Riesling loaded with minerality, citrus zest, peaches and exotic spices.”

Meanwhile, Taber said his publisher has already green-lit another wine expose—hinting that he’d next like to tackle vineyard enthusiasts. “People don’t go to see their computer being made,” Taber stated. “But they do go back to a winery because they want to have that personal experience of a wine they drank in the place it was made.”

“To Cork or Not to Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science, and the Battle for the Wine Bottle.” George M. Taber. Scribner, 288 pgs., $26.

(May 2008)