Good Grape Wine Company

January 15 2007

LSAT Wine Ethics Question of the Week

I could start this post off a million different ways. Really, I could.  I think the best way is to just lay out the circumstances.

James Laube of Wine Spectator, writing on the subscription-only area of their web site, had three posts last week.

The first post on January 9th gave an overview of TCA—which is the chemical abbreviation for 2,4,6-tichloroanisole.  The post explains a couple of key points:

1)  TCA is a chemical so powerful that even in infinitesimal amounts it can cause musty/off aromas and flavors in wines

2)  The taint most often comes from natural corks, but can also be a systemic problem in wineries where damp places and chlorine based cleaning agents are common

3)  TCA poses no health risk, though it can ruin a wine by inducing “off” flavors and can strip a wine of its fruit characteristics

4)  People vary widely in their ability to perceive TCA and some cork producers claim that 6 to 10 parts per trillion is acceptable as most people won’t notice it at this level.

4.1)  There are, however, some tasters that can detect TCA at 1 to 2 parts per trillion.

This is all well and good, and relatively unexciting.  Many people are familiar with corked wines.

But, what happens next, after the TCA baseline has been laid, is where it gets interesting.

Later that day, on January 9th at 5:17 pm ET Laube in a second post that day publishes a post on Pillar Rock wines with the headline:  Pillar Rock Battles TCA-Tainted Wine

In summary, Laube indicates in his post that all four bottles he received last year of the ’03 Pillar Rock Cabernet were corked.  He gave it a score of 55 points that was recently published on the Wine Spectator web site.  Laube explains that his suspicion is that the winery is tainted, and it’s not merely corked wine.  Obviously distressed by the score, the winery owner Cary Gott reached out to Laube after the scores were released in December of ’06 and asked him to re-taste the wines while at the same time he sent them to a lab for analysis.

The wines that Gott sent tested with low levels of TCA—1.4 and 1.6 parts per trillion, respectively.  Then Laube re-tasted and he thought they were corky again.  So, Wine Spectator sent them in to be tested and they tested at 1.2, 1.4 and 1.9 parts per trillion, respectively.

Gott said Tuesday of last week that he was going to continue to sell the wine, which retails for $125 a bottle with production limited to a mere 357 cases because, according to the quote from the post, “We don’t see the wine having the apparent taint of TCA.”

Laube finished his post with the following riposte:  “You may or may not be able to taste the TCA in Pillar Rock’s 2003 Cabernet.  The question is:  Do you want to take the chance?”

Still with me?  Good.  This is where it gets interesting.  The comments section on the blog post contain all manners of accusations and defenses—many lambasting Laube for his self-righteousness with his palate and others still defending his journalistic integrity for making this information public.

It’s helpful to know that chemical tests can pick up TCA at 1 part per trillion.  So, the levels that Laube supposedly picked up the TCA notes are equivalent to machine level chemical testing.  Wikipedia gives an analogy (found here) on “Parts per Trillion” that equates that level of chemical to:  one particle of a given substance for every 999,999,999,999 other particles. This is roughly equivalent to one drop of ink in a shipping canal lock full of water, or one second every 320 centuries.

Yes, you read that right.  If you were in crystal clear pure drinking water the size of a shipping canal lock and one single ink drop was put into the water that is roughly the equivalent of the 1.2 parts per trillion that Laube picked up of TCA taint in the Pillar Rock.

The 61 comments (and counting) themselves run longer then the actual post, with one commenter, Tim Long, noting:

“James - You astonish me with your hubris! First you highlight just what an ace taster you are, able to ID TCA virtually with the sensitivity of “one of the most advanced wine-analysis laboratories in the world.” Next, though “any TCA is a defect”, 1.2 or 1.4 ppt are “low levels” of taint. Defective wines, but only on a low level? OK. Next you move on to blatantly insult the winemaker(s); “I’m not surprised that Gott and other winemakers didn’t pick up the flaws in this wine. The TCA levels in the tested bottles are below the threshold of many tasters.” Cavalierly lumping Mr. Gott and the “other winemakers” in with those other “many tasters” who are mostly not, incidentally, successful wine professionals, is an insult in my book! Oh, and “a person can be a great winemaker without necessarily being a great taster.” Please tell us who these great winemakers are whose palates, you have no choice but to inform us, are so obviously less great than your own? That way we can all work together to put them out of business, at least unless we are certain that you have tasted and anointed their wines with your amazing (only slightly-mythologically “super sensitive”) palate! Since you are “not sure where the industry would be if issues such as this weren’t addressed,” this has nothing to do with vanity? Wow. I think I’ll have a beer.”

Brian Loring, himself a winemaker who makes some Pinot of merit, was on the board commenting in response to the Tim Long comment above and he said:

“Tim Long - I’ll step up and admit I’m not a super taster. I’ve never been able to taste all of the nuances that Jim and his felloow WS editors can detect in a wine. But I am very sensitive to TCA. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat at a table with a bunch of winemakers when I was the only one to initially detect a corked wine - only to have many others eventually come to the same conclusion. But there are always a few that will never detect the presence of TCA - and actually like the wine. But that doesn’t mean that TCA wasn’t present.

I would imagine that it’s really difficult for Jim to write these types of reports. And all of us in the wine world dread having something like this written about our wines or winery. But Jim has a responsibility to report what he knows… otherwise he loses all credibility. WS already gets way too much conspiracy theory type stuff written about them… could you imagine the outcry that would occur if they covered up information like TCA in a winery? They’d be crucified. It’s really a no win situation… but presenting the facts is always the most professional way to go. And as much as it pains me to see such a report - if it’s true - I can’t see any other option than to report it.”

To his credit, Laube doesn’t shrink from the flames and rants on the comment board, answering most that issue a challenge or require a rebuke.  On Friday, Laube issued his final salvo with an oblique post that seems one part haphazard apology because TCA taint in a winery is something of a victimless crime and a reach-around pimp slap to the commenters dosed with some (slight) humility when he says,

“I knew early on that there would always be someone who knew more about wine than I did, and I tried to learn from them.

I also knew that there would be better tasters and better writers, too.”

In my scan of this situation, it’s hard to get a read on the motive behind Laube and Wine Spectator going public with this. Generally speaking the wine industry is genteel without a lot of malice. Laube hides behind journalistic credibility which is a paper thin excuse because he is hardly a journalist and more a writer—big difference. Laube does no investigative work that I am aware of, nor is he paid to seeing as how he works for a lifestyle/affinity magazine.  Really, in my estimation, the situation seems to be about power and power summed up by the fact that the winery is not pulling the wine off the market, and I’m guessing that Laube, with his super-palate, thought that it should have been pulled.  Had it been taken off the market, if the winery owner, Cary Gott, acquiesced to Laube’s palate, I have a $100 bucks that says the story would be a non-starter and might have never seen the light of day—digitally or otherwise.  But, really, from a business perspective, with a virtually imperceptible amount of TCA in the bottle and with a production of just 357 cases priced at $125 a bottle with the assurance that the owner of the winery hadn’t detected it, would you have pulled it from the sales channels?  Leave a comment. 

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