What is the incidence of cork taint?
“Cork taint” is a misnomercork itself does not affect wine, but cork may become contaminated with TCA, a contamination affecting many food and beverage products worldwide that can migrate into wine and cause the taint. There is no definitive research that accurately determines the incidence of cork-related taint, although oenological studies suggest that 2-5% of wines are affected by some sort of taint, of which cork taint is only one factor. Random sensory testing of Portocork corks in 2005 revealed that from a sample of 24,000 corks, fewer than half a percentage point (0.48%) were defective. Portocork’s goal is to reduce this number to zero.
