Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
no health risk, even a hint dramatically reduces the enjoyment of a wine. TCA is largely
why screw caps have gained ground recently.
'Don't worry about the length of your cork, the quality is what's important,' said the
presenter.
'That's what I always say. It's the structure, not the length,' said Regis, a wine producer
from the Pécharmant appellation. Chuckles rippled round the room.
'Make sure when you're putting the corks in you don't go too fast, and keep the bottles
upright for three minutes before they are boxed.'
'Yes, but you shouldn't go too slowly either. I find you need to keep a good regular pace,'
said Jean-Paul, a winemaker from Saussignac, and laughter rippled again.
A year before I would not have known a good cork if it bit me. But the never-ending de-
bate of wine closures came up regularly at community events like the Saussignac growers'
evening.
'I would not use plastic,' said Jean-Marie. 'You know, I did a test with some yogurt. I put it
at the bottom of my fridge for two years. It was fine when I opened it, no mould at all, but
it tasted of plastic. That's food-grade plastic, like what they use for plastic corks. I wouldn't
want that in my wine.'
'And they use plastic on the interior of the screw caps,' said Thierry.
If the wine was stored for a long time with either of these options, they could leave a taste
of plastic and a hormone disrupter in the wine.
Sean decided on closures made from natural cork but treated to be guaranteed free of cork
taint. With the components for the bottling finalised we made our spring offer to our reg-
ular customers. We needed to plan how much wine to box. Wine that is fully dressed and
boxed should be sold within six months or the labels and boxes degrade. A wrong estimate
either way is costly. We expected a bumper response since it was the first wine made by us.
But many customers emailed to say their cellar was stocked after massive February wine
sales.
I did a quick survey of the main wine retailers and found that the wine crisis was biting
hard. I had read that New World producers, whose costs were a fraction of European pro-
ducers', were flooding the market and that in an effort to compete, French producers had
cut prices to well below cost. My survey confirmed that good French wines were selling
for 25 per cent less than when we left Dublin almost two years before. Winemakers were
slashing prices to offload stock. The comfortable, secure life we had left suddenly looked
very appealing.
Sean sent vat samples of our wine to our highest priority target client, a chain of about
twenty-five wine shops.
The client tasted them and asked us to send samples of the finished wines when they were
ready. I was totally depressed. What was I expecting? An immediate order for all the pro-
duction we had? I bemoaned the situation to Fiona Kingwill.
