Cork Type to Use

[mcorey]

I'm entering my 3rd season of winemaking. I make my wine from grapes and, much like everyone else, I want the best outcome possible.

I bottled my last batch and used natural, Grade 3 corks. I'm told that those corks will last 5-7 years. I used natural corks because I want the wine to age appropriately and I don't mind spending a little bit more to use them. However, should I be concerned w/ cork taint? Aside from a few bottles, I expect much of my wine will be consumed within 5 years.

With that in mind, am I putting the wine at risk (taint) by using natural corks? Maybe I should just be using 1+1

 

[sour_grapes]

If you keep bleach and other chlorinated products far away from your winery, you have little chance of cork taint.

 

[mcorey]

Thanks for the reply. However, I'm not sure how to avoid chlorine. Our house water is chlorinated and I use the water & SO2 to sanitize just about everything. In that case, should I avoid natural corks?

 

[richmke]

Cork Taint comes from TCA in the natural cork. Estimates are 1 to 7% of bottles are affected.

I wouldn't trust Grade 3 cork for 5-7 years. If you want to store it that long, make sure you use #9 size Grade 2 or Grade 1 cork.

FYI:

Nomacorc has O2 transmission rate of .005 cc
http://nomacorc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Classic+_SellSheet.pdf

Natural Cork is .0005 cc to .05 cc, with the better cork having a lower transmission rate.
http://www.practicalwinery.com/winter2011/closure1.htm

Chlorine is a problem for both natural and synthetic cork. The amount of chlorine in tap water is not a problem. Just don't sanitize your bottles or equipment with bleach diluted in water.

 

[mcorey]

Thank you for the reply! Great info


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Mixttibsk

 

[ibglowin]

IMHO you have a higher risk of Cork Taint using a low quality all natural cork than you would say a 1+1. Either pony up for a high quality real cork or go for the 1+1. A cheap real cork may go through limited or no process at all to remove TCA but a high quality cork (and a 1+1 is a high quality cork) will certainly go through a multistep process to extract TCA either by Supercritcal CO2 extraction or other methods.