Los Angeles Times
When floral goes funky: Don't let a flawed wine ruin dinner. Here's how to sniff out a bad example
by Corie Brown, January 11, 2006

As his students swirl and sniff [John Buechsenstein]'s exaggerated examples -- some glasses hold flawed wines and some have chemical cocktails that imitate flaws -- Buechsenstein explains that "wine is a sponge for odors." Modern technology and good sanitation have reduced the amount of flawed wine on the market.

When it comes to cork taint, every nose is unique. "Different people have different thresholds of sensitivity to cork taint," says Peter Marks, wine curator at Napa's Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts. Wine professionals can be educated to detect cork taint. "But I know Masters of Wine [the industry's most highly trained professionals] who rarely notice it, while other people can pick up the slightest trace," he says. "I detect it most often when it subdues the fruit character of a wine. It makes the wine taste sharp, yet hollow, as if it lacks a soul."

Corked wine doesn't always smell like a dirty locker room. It may instead act as a wet blanket on a wine, masking flavors either slightly or completely. And because the evidence of corked wine is often the absence of a characteristic, it goes unnoticed, says Buechsenstein. People just think the wine is a dud and avoid buying it again. "Many times you can't know for sure that a wine's corked unless you are tasting an uncorked bottle of the same wine, side by side," he says. And even then you need to make sure both bottles aren't from a contaminated winery where cork taint is widespread.

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