The Auswine Forum

the ceaseless battle against the evil forces of TCA goes ever on! Seems the corked bottles pop up on damn-near every special occasion I have! This time a treasured 1984 Cyril, total dud, and a 2000 Nicholson River Winery Chardonnay, normally a rich complex idiosyncratic wine, on the day hard, ungiving, short. Henschke as always, scrupulously professional & generous, replaced it with a current release (2000) Cyril, & feedback from the winemaker that my bottle was indeed TCA affected & oxidized. (I'd sent the recorked '84 Cyril to them under my own steam). With the Nicholson, Ken Eckersley rang me, had a long chat, & sent me the latest version of his remarkable chardonnay without requiring the suspect bottle to be returned. Bravo!

Mark S wrote:the ceaseless battle against the evil forces of TCA goes ever on! Seems the corked bottles pop up on damn-near every special occasion I have! This time a treasured 1984 Cyril, total dud, and a 2000 Nicholson River Winery Chardonnay, normally a rich complex idiosyncratic wine, on the day hard, ungiving, short. Henschke as always, scrupulously professional & generous, replaced it with a current release (2000) Cyril, & feedback from the winemaker that my bottle was indeed TCA affected & oxidized. (I'd sent the recorked '84 Cyril to them under my own steam). With the Nicholson, Ken Eckersley rang me, had a long chat, & sent me the latest version of his remarkable chardonnay without requiring the suspect bottle to be returned. Bravo!

Mark,
you have indeed received good service. But I am curious about the Nicholson river - TCA won't make the wine short, nor would it really make it hard and tight. Any ideas on what was wrong with it, becuase it doesn;t sound corked?

Michael, good points! The Nicholson chard did not have any overt signs of TCA, but tasted dramatically different to the lush, almost over-the-top wine I experienced a year or so ago. Ken thinks that his 2000 chardonnay has closed down, gone into a dumb phase or similar. I've never had a Nicholson like the one I contacted him about, I'm convinced that there was something definitely wrong with it. Random oxidation part way thru its process, perhaps? He believes that R.O. is a greater problem statistically then TCA! Then again, low level TCA taint still continues to baffle me on occasion - I know it can rob a wine of its fruit, leaving an emptiness where an interesting bouquet & palate would normally be, and that was true of my bottle - bring on the Stelvins, I say!

Mark

I have a good collection of early Cyril- will let you know how the 84 performs. On the drink soon list.

Concur with your plaudits for Henschke. I felt their TCA procedures ( customer relations ) ahead of the rest of the wine industry years ago.

I met some Americans in Ampuis who had a tasting put on in the states by the Henschkes-not a bad wine group to belong to as involved a horizontal of new and old vine MtEd & HofG-who were told TCA in the 12% mark for Henschke wines! Anecdotal evidence of course.

One HofG in eight RS!