the.com/corked
the moment a wine's soul gets murdered by its own bottle stopper
means Describing a wine spoiled by a tainted cork, giving it a musty, wet-cardboard smell and a flat, lifeless taste.
from From "cork," the buoyant outer bark of the cork oak (Quercus suber), used to stopper bottles since at least the 17th century. The word "cork" came into English via the Spanish "alcorque" (a cork-soled shoe), itself likely tracing back to the Latin "quercus," oak. "Corked" in the spoilage sense points the finger at the culprit: a cork contaminated by the compound TCA (2,4,6-trichloroanisole), which leaches its taint into the wine — so the very thing meant to protect the bottle becomes its assassin.
- the culprit
- a chemical called TCA, not actual cork bits
- detection limit
- humans smell it at parts per trillion
- failure rate
- roughly one in twenty corked bottles historically
- screw cap
- its existence is largely cork's revenge
- telltale smell
- wet cardboard, damp basement, soggy newspaper
sammy sosa 2003 crack — chicago cubs player's bat shattered in game revealing cork inside
wilfred benitez wine bottles — dominican boxer's corked wine bottles became a running joke in boxing culture