Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Cork taint is the undesirable effect the cork contaminant trichloroanisole has on wine which had been sealed in a bottle with a cork. A wine afflicted with cork taint is said to be "corked". Corked wine has a characteristic odor, variously described as resembling a moldy newspaper, wet dog, or damp basement. In almost all cases the aroma of the wine is reduced significantly, and a very tainted wine is completely undrinkable. While the human threshold for detecting trichloroanisole is measured in the single-digit parts per trillion, this can vary by several orders of magnitude depending on an individual's sensitivity. The incidence of bottles with cork taint is estimated to be between 1 and 15 percent. The former figure is from the cork-industry group APCOR, which cites a study showing a 0.7-1.2% taint rate. Anecdotal evidence from wine professionals suggests that the rate may be substantially higher. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.