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Company reveals devices to detect oxidation and cork taint
October 4, 2007
Alia Akkam
Two revolutionary wine devices detecting cork taint and oxidation levels in wines without opening the bottles have been unveiled.
The devices, the only ones in the world of their kind, were developed by the University of California, Davis (UCD), with funding from the owner of the Crystal Springs resort in Vernon, New Jersey.
Resort owner Gene Mulvihill, who boasts a collection of over 50,000 bottles, began funding the research several years ago, saying he wanted to come up with devices that would test the quality of fine wines without opening and damaging bottles.
In 2003, chemists at UCD first developed a wine scanner using MRI technology used in the medical field, to determine whether or not a bottle of wine was spoilt by oxidization.
Mulvihill continued his collaboration with the university to create a cork taint device that can detect the molecule 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) and determine a bottle's mustiness to 1 point per trillion. The normal level at which humans can detect TCA is considered to be 3 to 4 parts per trillion.
The testing process takes between two and twenty minutes.
'People are paying for good wines,' he said. 'Now they have the technology to make sure they are [good].'
Have your say...
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 I don't quite get the point here. Is Mr Mulvihill saying he won't buy wine at auction unless they are passed fit to drink? or is this research supposed to help wine leave the winery in good condition? or is it a tool for the cellar master to determine whether a bottle should be opened or sealed forever?
The auction place will be a very different environment if the only wines worth buying are those that are still drinkable. Perhaps we will see a new symbol in the sale catalogue indicating 'TCA compliant' or 'still not oxidised'.
This will open a whole new (and interesting) can of worms as to what's worth opening and what's drinkable. After all a machine can tell me my Barolo was oxidised while my palate says it was still worth drinking. Who will be the 22nd century wine guru capable of tasting to machine standard and awarding Parker points at the same time?
92 Points 90% ox .5 TCA. Rivetting stuff. Time to sell this one off and let some one else pay for the test again next year!
Kevin Ecock
Very good idea! Get seriously peeved when i open a corked or oxidized bottle of wine. Maybe this will be good for the cork industry. They will be able to get more accurate data on how many bottles are affected by poor quality corks. And I certainly would not want to buy a corked or oxidized wine on an Auction. Surely, above all, wine is produced to be enjoyed!
Maud Letzler, South Africa
I don't quite get the point either. Why bother testing already sealed wines. Oxidation is a natural process, and once the wine is to old, it is to old. Purchase at your own risk. Cork taint should be tested before the wine is bottled, i.e. the cork itself particularly, etc.
O. Timothy
Wow! This will be the end of cork taint forever! The Portuguese dream comes true! Every supplier can now NOT send the dastardly bungs out to us unsuspecting knaves. As for the auctions, they can easily run the tests before they take on the consignment. Splendid! No need for screw caps, plastic, etc. either.
Bob Rohden, Chicago, USA
One vital point to make about this development is that it will, if proven to be effective, finally remove the obfuscation on the part of producers and sommeliers (usually European, unfortunately) who have been all too ready to deny the incidence of cork taint and (the, to my mind, more insidious) incidence of random oxidation. I have just hosted a tasting in London at which we opened 12 bottles each of Gruaud Larose 2004, Dominus 2003, Ridge Chardonnay 2002, Barthod Chambolle Musigny les Chatelots 1996 and Beaux Freres 2000.
As usual, I tasted all the wines before serving, and took note of the corks. The variation in flavour between bottles of the same wine was significant enough to be noticed by total amateurs who had never even learned how to taste wine. There was one evidently (if slightly) cork-tainted Ridge Chardonnay and one dubious Gruaud Larose. All of the others were free of taint, but definitely in some cases affected by oxidation. Examination of the corks was also instructive. In the case of some of the Beaux Freres, the variation in wine "travel" was between 20% (ie four fifths of the cork was unstained) and 100% (in two cases the wine had reached the outside edge of the cork). The variation on the other reds was less significant but still far from acceptable. There is no other product on the market in which this level of variability (or lack of quality control) would be accepted. Suggestions that this variability is "part of the romance of wine" are nonsense. In truth, some unfortunate people at my tasting got a worse experience (of wines costing £27-57) than others and there's nothing romantic about that. If it is possible to nail these phenomena on print-outs that can be presented to producers and merchants, perhaps the more conservative parts of the wine industry would finally wake up to the seriousness of the problem. Many top French estates still like to claim that they "never" have problems with corked bottles; random oxidation is a concept that has yet to be addressed in most of Bordeaux and Burgundy.
Robert Joseph, London, UK
I heartily endorse Robert Joseph's comments, having had similar experiences across multiple bottles of often young wine. Sporadic oxidation - which occurs with young wines, not just old ones, O. Timothy - is a greater problem than TCA and one that cork suppliers usually refuse to acknowledge, as they previously did with cork taint. To be fair to cork suppliers, malformations of the bottle's bore or an incorrect insertion process are occasionally to blame, but the problem is still related to a stopper-type closure.
Nick Bulleid MW, Canberra, Australia
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