Tainted (cork) Love

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This week marked round two of adventures in wine making.  Having bottled our fist batch of Amarone back in October, I quite fancy myself as a character from the movie "Sideways".

Bottling under the direction of the Brew Time (www.brewtime.ca) staff was just as much fun as the first time.  Our new batch of "Bitch n' Wine" is an Italian Pinot Grigio.  And it is yummy if I do say so myself. 

When we bottled the Amarone, we had selected plastic corks.  The theory is that plastic corks are a better choice because they are the best measure to prevent wine spoilage.  However, the plastic corks are are real pain to get out of the bottle and they do not fit back in the bottle once removed. 

We seriously considered using the natural cork variety for this batch.  There is something psychological about a natural cork - one just assumes that the wine is of better quality compared to a bottle of vino topped with a plastic cork or a screw top.  God forbid, the classy box 'o' wine. The thing is, a great wine can't be judged by it's packaging. A great wine is determined by your own personal tastes. 

After reading various wine articles on wine, a natural cork has a 5% chance of spoilage which is known as "cork taint".  And no, a "cork taint" is not the area between the top of the wine level and the bottom of the cork - get your minds out the gutter.  It is the term given to spoiled wine that has a "damp basement smell" that is caused by a bacteria in the cork. 

In the end we decided that taking a few more seconds to remove the plastic cork (and hurl curses at it) was better than potentially losing some of our inventory.

As we are now hooked on making wine, we have plans for 2013 batches of Chardonnay and Sangiovese.  For those of you who play the stock market, I highly suggest investing in Proctor & Gamble shares based on all of the Crest White Strips that I am going through with the consumption of the Amarone, coupled with the upcoming Sangiovese.