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WINEMAKING NA VIGA TION ers once a year. All the water used to spray wood staves goes through sterilization and filtration; the water we extract (during heat-drying) gets analyzed, every lot. We have air traps and air filters. The protocols are thick as a phone book." One thing most cooperages do not do is retest barrels once they arrive in the U.S. In the case of cork, the Cork Quality Coun- cil, a consortium of major cork suppliers, supplements the efforts of cork produc- ers by testing incoming batches of corks through a sampling protocol. The French cooperages mainly do quality assurance in France. At ETS, which has worked with the Cork Quality Council on its U.S. test- ing program, Gordon Burns says, "We have not seen evidence that the problem is significant enough to justify routine sam- pling on arrival in U.S." It's entirely possible, as Chatonnet ar- gues, that there are novel sources of con- tamination for which no one is properly controlling. But it's clear that the cooper- ages are taking the problem more seriously than their cork cousins did in the 1990s. Tainted reputation Returning to the cork analogy one last time, complaints about corked wine even- tually meant that natural cork had not just a technical/chemical problem but a major reputation problem. Wineries that may not have encountered serious trouble of their own got scared by horror stories. Natu- ral corks became an all-purpose villain. "Waiter, this bottle is corked," is routinely invoked by consumers for everything from real, live TCA to a bad vintage in Pomerol. Still today, natural cork has a reputation in some quarters that is arguably worse than the product's actual performance. "It's nothing but a scam, a way to make money by scaring people off." —Francois Peltereau-Villeneuve Chatonnet's article cites an object les- son in tainted reputation. He references an unnamed French cooperage that received complaints from California users concern- ing 0.15% of their barrels, which resulted in a 50% loss of share in this market. Ma- jor changes in production methods put an end to the complaints, the article contin- QSEE US AT UNIFIED, BOOTH #713g ues, "but this only resulted in a slow re- covery in sales. Consequently, even a small percentage of defective products may have major mid- to long-term repercussions on an industrial and business level." The Wine Spectator article, which re- ceived wide attention, contains a balanced treatment of which side says what in the dispute. But it ran under a rather alarm- ist headline—"Are French Barrels Corking Your Wine?"—and offered that teaser to a huge audience of non-technical consumers. There's little chance that high-end win- eries will abandon barrels and make all their wines in TCA-free tanks; there's no choice for fine wine production equivalent to the rise of synthetics and screwcaps. But this controversy is likely to mean that win- eries will be asking their barrel suppliers about more than simply toast level and forest geography from now on. Tim Patterson is the author of the newly re- leased Home Winemaking for Dummies. He writes about wine and makes his own in Berke- ley, Calif. Years of experience as a journalist, combined with a contrarian streak, make him interested in getting to the bottom of wine sto- ries, casting a critical eye on conventional wis- dom in the process. To comment on this article, e-mail edit@winesandvines.com. Wine Club Solution for QuickBooks POS Extend QuickBooks POS & QuickBooks Accounting with apowerful wine club solution Affordable? YES! CHOOSE ALL AMERICAN We carry a complete line of wine bottles, corks and capsules in a wide selection of colors, shapes, styles and sizes – and our bi-coastal warehouses service the entire United States. All American has it all. For more information, contact: Stephanie Ramczyk (707) 544-3496 sramczyk@aacpacificcoast.com Marty Sychowski (707) 328-5316 martys@aacpacificcoast.com West Coast Wine Warehouse in Santa Rosa, CA East Coast Wine Warehouse in Belle Vernon, PA Additional Sales Offices & Warehouses in Miami, Tampa, Atlanta, Puerto Rico, NJ and CA 122 Wines & Vines JAnUARY 2011 www.aacwine.com QSEE US AT UNIFIED, BOOTH #1805 Lissa McLaughlin (727) 321-8879 lmclaughlin@allamericancontainers.com Roberta Parmelee (315) 585-6045 rparmelee@allamericancontainers.com 866-450-CLUB(2582) www.activeclubmanagement.com info@activeclubmanagement.com QSEE US AT UNIFIED, BOOTH #1738 $ 500.00 one-time fee (transaction fees apply) See a demo & learn about our proven success of working with 200+ clubs ActiveClub_Dec08.qxp 10/27/08 3:26 PM