Recognising cork taste

Many corked wines give off a smell of wet cardboard and dusty attics from ten metres away. But sometimes, you can’t be quite sure whether a wine is corked or not. One simple ingredient is enough to make sure: an equal measure of warm water. This is because the taste of corked wine is caused by an extremely volatile molecule called TCA. If you dilute the wine and raise its temperature, it will virtually jump right out of the glass.