Bark Flogger Bites Back

By KYM WILSDON – Part of this correspondence was published in The Independent Weekly on 24 October 2008 - for the latest on cork stink, click on the cigar the bonnie lass above's got her fangs around. Photo from The Independent Weekly.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to request that the Independent Weekly publish a response to Philip White’s articles of 29 August titled Put a cork in it! and his recent follow-up piece of 8 October headed Cork comes unscrewed.

Amorim is keen to address a number of inaccuracies in Philip’s articles and some of the disparaging comments he has made about the company and natural cork.

It is particularly disappointing that Philip White does not appear to have made any effort to bring himself up-to-date with the latest developments in cork production and the substantial improvement that has been made in the performance of natural cork as a wine closure over the past decade. Such information is readily available on the internet.

We would be pleased if our response [following] could be published on the “thirst” page as well as on your website as was the case with Philip’s articles.

Kym Wilsdon
General Manager
Amorim Australasia Pty Ltd

To The Editor:

In reference to Philip White’s articles in the Independent Weekly on 29 August and more recently on 8 October, he might want to take some advice from one of his editor’s headlines and “Put a cork in it!” — at least until he has all the facts and brings himself up-to-date.

Amorim, the world’s leading natural cork producer, is not simply “a trader that ships cork bark”, but rather a publicly-listed global company that invests millions of dollars each year in research and development to enhance its products. These products are sold to some of the world’s most demanding and reputable organisations, including leaders in the aerospace, wine, sporting goods, heavy construction and fashion industries.

Rather than doing “sweaty deals”, Amorim prefers to establish long-term relationships with its customers, working in close consultation with them across a number of industry sectors worldwide. These are exactly the type of relationships Amorim enjoys with the world’s biggest wineries.

In terms of quality control, the cork industry has come a long way in the last 10 years. At Amorim, advanced production processes and stringent quality control measures supported by scientific analysis ensure any “vermin” are evicted well before our corks are delivered to a winemaker.

As for chlorine, it has not been used in cork production for well over a decade.

In his latest article, Philip White raises the issue of oxidation. Over hundreds of years cork has proven to be an adequate oxygen barrier in sealing billions of bottles of wine worldwide. The chemistry underlying the process of so-called ‘random oxidation’ in wine — with the obvious operative concept here being random instead of predictable — is unclear. However, a number of respected wine chemists, including Australia’s Dr John Casey and New Zealand’s Dr Alan Limmer, suggest the problem lies in bottling procedures, not with the closure.

Further research that looks at all variables including closure selection, bottling procedures and winemaking practices will contribute to fact-based knowledge. We need to move on from unsubstantiated statements that do not contribute to rational debate.

Members of the scientific community also undertake regular analysis on cork quality and results point to a significant improvement in recent years. The US-based Cork Quality Council, for example, shows an 80 per cent reduction in 2,4,6 trichloroanisole (commonly referred to as cork taint or TCA) levels in bulk cork imports since 2001. The average TCA count has dropped from 4.0 parts per trillion (ppt) several years ago to less than 1.0 ppt — well below sensory thresholds.

In addition, international expert Dr Pascal Chatonnet, a leading scientist and Bordeaux winemaker, stated in a 2007 conference in Napa that lab tests showed the incidence of cork related taint had declined from 4.9 per cent in 2003 to a mere 0.2 per cent in 2006.

On the issue of environmental sustainability, natural cork is streets ahead of alternative closures. That’s not just Amorim’s point of view, it is a fact supported by a number of independent life-cycle studies on the carbon footprint of wine closures. Not a big surprise when we are comparing the ultimate natural renewable product with oil-derived and aluminium products.

Apart from being renewable, recyclable and biodegradable, natural cork also plays an important role in carbon dioxide retention. In fact, it is estimated that the cork oak forests of the Mediterranean basin help offset a massive 10 million tonnes of CO2 every year, making them a significant carbon sink.

Industry attention is now turning to areas such as environmental performance and achieving value growth for Australian wines in the global market, as outlined in the strategy, Wine Australia: Directions to 2025. And these are areas where cork and Amorim can play a supportive role.

Today, we have great confidence in the technical performance of our products as well as our ability to support the industry in terms of environmental sustainability. We believe natural cork has a very bright future.

http://www.savemiguel.com/

COMMENTS:

1. HAROLD JOSEPH wrote

Amorim's Kym Wilsden's comments are fascinating.

There's the reference to billions of bottles of wine, then the concession that almost 5% of all the wine ever made anywhere in the world, up to and including 2003, and bottled under cork, was probably tainted by the product in question. Isn't that one bottle in 20? For all wine ever under cork? In terms of cases of 12, just so I understand, what exactly is a "mere" 0.2% of 2008 world wine production equivalent to? By my calculations, a 50,000 case winery loses 100 cases, a year, which they probably replace free, making it nearer to 200 cases, a year. Hope it's not Grange.

And I see there's still a problem getting eviction notices through to that pesky 1 ppt of the vermin population.

2. FIRSTY wrote

Well, Kym, that's fascinating. You fail to address Mr. White's suggestion that vendors of wine should not expect their customers to carry a special spanner or crank handle around just to get at the wine in the bottle. You don't realise that the lovely lass above has had to pull your bark plug out with her beautiful teeth!

You most noticeably fail to claim that since all your bark-cleansing experiments have been so successful, Coke and the medicine business haven't flocked back to cork. You just don't get it, do you. No. You have far too much at stake.

3. WHEEZER wrote

And tobacco doesn't cause lung cancer.

4. ANDREW GRAHAM wrote

'The Cork Quality Council is a nonprofit organization sponsored by selected wine cork suppliers.'

Very impartial then...
.

Cork Wars: Australian Putsch Bottles Up Portuguese Rear

by PHILIP WHITE - This story appeared in The Independent Weekly as "Cork Comes Unscrewed" on 3 October 08

If I suddenly disappear, it’ll probably be the Portuguese. Silly buggers haven’t learnt much in our thirty years of warfare.

When José Lopez, of the Portuguese company, Amorim, opened fire on my recent spray against cork on The Independent Weekly website his first shot was a complete fizzer. Amorim’s the world’s biggest rubber and cork trader. José suggested I’m on the take from the screwcappers. Read The Olympics Were Corked in the September archive below and you’ll get the whole grim PR disaster.

The screwcappers have no reason to pay me. I support them for free. Screwcaps are a zillion percent better for keeping wine fresh, and my responsibility is to my readers, who deserve the best. So I hate cork. I hate its trichloranisole taint, which arises when the chlorine used to beautify and sanitise it reacts with microbes living naturally within it. And I dislike the way cork lets wine oxidise.

I’ve been this dangerously subversive since Coca Cola abandoned the cork wafers beneath its crown seals in the ’sixties. The pharmaceutical business soon followed suit. Corky soft drink and cough medicine may still be available in Portugal, but we’ve had none here for thirty years. Although Adelaideans smell TCA most times they take a shower, thanks probably to chlorination.

There was more incoming. Mai Nygaard lobbed a big grenade, but forgot to say she’s Business Development Manager of Normacorc. Then I thought they’d subbed Carlos the Jackal to wipe me, but it turned out to be Carlos de Jesus, José’s boss at Amorim, with a glib disclaimer. Perhaps he’d read up a touch of Australian libel law, or remembered that Amorim had for years employed Brian Croser (deputy chancellor of the University of Adelaide, which runs our wine education and research) and Len Evans, who was chairman of Croser’s Petaluma. Both were doyens of Australia’s wine show system for decades.

Some synthetic plugs are improvements on cork, but they still don’t get it. I want to carry a corkscrew/bottle opener everywhere about as much as a friggin crank handle. Even the Portuguese sardine industry worked out decades ago that they couldn’t expect fish lovers to carry a special tool around just to get the fish out of the tin. Aussie brewers were next to abandon the tool kit.

If you’re a blingster who just loves something clunky to jangle on your keys, I reckon the Diam compound cork is the best excuse to carry a mechanical tugger. In many thousands, I’ve found only a few Diams to be duds, and this was mainly due to irregularities in the bottle neck. Much stiffer than corks, Diam plugs sit tight, but don’t swell as well to fill depressions or seams within imperfect necks, so wine gets out and oxygen gets in. And they’re so hard to get off the worm, somebody should invent another gadget to help with that.

Of course TCA comes from sources other than corks. Pat Conlon’s new trams smelled corked when they were new, probably something to do with the aircon filters being sanitised with chlorine. The international entry lounge at Darwin airport was corked for thirty years, probably due to well-intentioned cleaners ensuring there was no tropical mould in the carpet. I always thought of Portugal when I came through. Some cheese is corky, too. Chlorine is used to sanitise cheese factories, and the French wrapping used to package white rind cheese is often bleached with chlorine compounds.

Cork lovers who preach about natural always being better should abandon the chlorine completely and leave the poor old cork trees alone. Respect the sacred ecology of the natural microfauna in the bark. Get straight back to the old wine skin. Pig is best. You seal ’em with a leather thong. I don’t know whether St. Matthew was a practising Jew, but remember his advice from God’s Word: “Neither do men put new wine into old skins: else the skins break, and the wine runneth out”.

Dislike overt sulphur? Anyone who seals a wine high in sulphur beneath screwcaps will soon learn they’re so effective they preserve faults as well as attributes. Want cork because you desire the sort of oxidation cork permits? Winemakers who seek oxidation should permit a little oxygen in the headspace below whichever closure they choose. But for me, polymerisation without oxidation, please. Screw it!

When me old China suggested Australia's "a proven failure as a wine producer, producing a soda kind of drink", I almost sympathised. Like China, we still use table grapes for wine production. And as for China being "the milenar culture which privileges natural material for the food product whose consumption is developing most in the last years is indeed a deep, intelligent one"? Mate, pull out the cork and have a nice big glass of milk, there's a dear.

.

The Olympics were corked

by PHILIP WHITE - This was published as "Put A Cork In It" in The Independent Weekly on 29 August 2008

Amorim, the transnational rubber trader which ships more cork bark than anyone else, is smarting. Having lost Australia’s wine market to the superior screw cap - meaning the dominoes of Britain and the USA will also inevitably fall - the fat Portuguese outfit used the Olympics in a desperate attempt to secure the Chinese wine market.

Obsessed with European tradition it can copy, if not simply purchase, the fledgling Chinese wine industry still loves the romance of cork. Exporters of Australian wines must step backwards to enter China: wines sold safely under screwcaps in the rest of the world are not acceptable to the Chinese unless they’re corked. Which is temporary, given China’s incredible advancements in the packaging of other foods and beverages.

China grows more grapes than Australia. If it finds the water to replace our evaporating Chateau Murray-Darling, China will soon be selling cheap wine to Australia. It will then learn the advantages of screw caps, because we won’t want cork unless it’s in platform shoes.

Our heroic Coles is teaching this lesson to the Old World, by purchasing larger volumes of wine provided it’s under screw. The best value sangiovese available here is Vintage Cellars’ “Chalk Board” $15 chianti - the first wine from that huge region to be screwcapped. To reward the producer’s investment in the bottling technology, the opening order was 2000 dozen. Similarly, the first Rioja screwcaps are on the water. This is just the beginning.

Amorim did a sweaty deal with China, through its biggest winery, Great Wall, to ensure all wine served at the Olympics was sealed with “natural cork”. Swarming, no doubt, with all manner of completely natural greeblies, cork being the spongiform bark of the oak, Quercus suber, which structurally resembles a multi-story five-star hotel for microscopic vermin. Unless, of course, the cork is chlorine-bleached, which converts some of those tiny varmints to the dreaded cat-piss/rat’s nest cork taint appropriately called trichloranisole. Amorim consistently claims to have put an end to this infection, but none of the corked wines and whiskies I taste swab clean.

Amorim claims cork is an environmental triumph, preaching on TV ads and the internet that screwcaps threaten the arcadian bliss of the cork groves of the western Mediterranean, and the serene, pristine peasants who tend them. Not to mention the sacred habitat of the blessed lesser-spotted cork dotterel and the freckled pigmy plug sloth.

“One of the world’s greatest examples of sustainable development” Amorim calls the cork racket.... “wine producers looking to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions can address these aspects as a matter of priority”. So screw caps trigger farting? Pull the other one. Given Portugal’s history of specialization in such delicacies as conquering and colonisation, one may wonder whether Amorim envies China’s attitude to human rights and censorship.

The beer industry used the Olympics to stage a collision of the great tectonic plates of suds. Anheuser-Busch is America’s biggest brewer. It makes 48.5 percent of US beer, and owns Budweiser, the world’s biggest-selling beer. Not to mention 50 percent of Grupo Modelo, Mexico's biggest brewer (with Corona, number five globally), and 27 percent of Tsingtao, China’s biggest. Budweiser was a major Olympics sponsor. Like Chinese beer, Bud’s made from rice as much as barley, so it’s lighter and simpler and suited to markets that accept only corked wines or beer you can’t drink without jamming a chunk of lemon down its neck.

On a greenbucks clutch equal to Amorim’s, Budweiser boasts of being the world's largest recycler of aluminum cans. It’s like Banrock Station saving the Murray. I’m green, therefore I deserve.

InBev, the Belgian brewer which set up shop in 1366, is the biggest global brewer, with over 200 brands, like Stella Artois, Beck’s, Leffe, Hoegaarden, Skol, Quilmes, Brahma, Staropramen, Sibirskaya Korona, Chernigivske, Sedrin, Cass, Jupiler and whatnot. It’s now adding Anheuser-Busch to its list. Anheuser-Busch Inbev will own the thirst of China, USA, Russia, Brazil and Germany.

While Beck’s is brewed here by Lion Nathan (whose foray into the wine business is not completely cool), Stella is brewed by Fosters. Like the local Heineken, they’re not European at all. So scour the atlas of the new leviathan’s holdings. Jeez, look Ma, there’s a great big hole here called Australia! Since it was still Interbrew, years ago, InBev has ogled the Fosters apple. So why would you let Fosters make your prime product taste like Melbourne beer when you could simply buy it - Fosters - whip up its dull suds, and ensure your Aussie Stella tastes more like a racy Belgian premium?

If/when Anheuser-Busch Inbev buys Fosters, which it may well do on its way home from China, it will reverse our dumb brewers’ disastrous forays into wine. There’ll be feathers all over the chookhouse when Fosters’ wineries hit the block.

COMMENTS

These comments were left on The Independent Weekly site. You can add comments direct to this blog by hitting the comment button below.

How much this "writer" has received from the screw cap producers? For me this is not an exempt article. Related to the sustainability matters i prefer to "save Miguel". You can "save Miguel" to in http://www.savemiguel.com/ Miguel is cork oak tree, go and see.

Posted by José Lopes on 4/09/2008 12:36:45 AM

(Jose Lopes works for Amorim.)

Brilliant article! Though not the perfect solution, screw caps are the best closure currently available. Patrick Stowe Rimu Grove Winery

Posted by pinotman10 on 4/09/2008 10:03:25 AM

There sure will becasue Constellation's wineries will hit the block first. Maybe the resulting rerating of the production facilities values might make wine profitable again....

Posted by MiketheWineGuy on 4/09/2008 11:29:10 AM

Thanks Jose for that carefully worded and intelligent comment and accusation. Another smart move by Amorim!

Posted by AndrewG on 4/09/2008 12:15:41 PM

I love it when someone like Philip White lays it into these bark floggers - the idea that cork is tradition and that tradition is good; ergo bark is good needs to be laid to rest. Cork bark belongs with other grand traditions like drowning witches, stonings and absolute monarchs. Using cork bark to stopper a bottle is like burning coal to make power, whereas a screwcap is akin to a nice clean and modern solar panel.

Posted by Awinelover on 4/09/2008 12:44:30 PM

Without any reference to AWRI taste trials or other objective measures, this rant completely ignores the Australian invention - Pro Cork. This closure uses the benefits of cork in aging wines and the prophylactic properties of a cellulose barrier to prevent TCA. A great closure and market appreciated all in one. Get up to scratch Mr White!

Posted by Bachanaussie on 4/09/2008 1:13:17 PM

yesterday we opened a bottle of expensive Chardonnay under a Diam cork, a glued together product, it was as badly cork tainted as I have seen - the sooner we get over corks the better. Perhaps we could save Miguel's ancestors by going all the way back to sticking a wax soaked stick in the bottle!

Posted by Gazza in vic on 4/09/2008 5:49:29 PM

Independent weekly? Pfft.. don't kid me!! "Superior screwcaps" yes, that's a very independent statement. "The cork racket"?!?! What is cork some kind of mob deal? Obviously Philip White is well paid by Stelvin and The Independent Weekly is not quite as independent as it thought.

Posted by Luke on 4/09/2008 7:41:18 PM

Regarding the postings on your website commenting an article referring Amorim, we want to immediately clarify that it is not Amorim & Irmaos position that the opinions – albeit misinformed – expressed by the article’s author are anything more than just that. The author is, of course, entitled to his views and to express them freely, and the same applies to any of the postings’ authors. If indeed any of our thousands of employees made a comment on this site, that will be a representation of his or hers private views. It cannot and should not be interpreted as anything resembling the company’s official views. Carlos de Jesus Director, Marketing & Communications Amorim & Irmaos SA

Posted by Carlos de Jesus on 4/09/2008 9:31:33 PM

Jose, what the writer has received from screw cap producers is untainted wine, which is far more environmentally friendly than having to send twice the amount of sample stock.

Posted by Christophe P on 5/09/2008 11:45:11 AM

Its amazing how emotional this debate is! What happened to objective and sound information based on technical facts?! It would be good to see White focus on what really counts - how to ensure the end consumer receives the wine in perfect condition! A good closure solution should provide a consistent and taint free seal and be suitable for the wine style. This includes ensuring oxygen ingress over the closure match the intended sensory profile of the wine. Alternative closures are becoming increasingly popular in todays wine world as they have a lot to offer, but its interesting to note that on a global scale more wines are sealed with synthetic closures than with screw caps.

Posted by Mai Nygaard on 5/09/2008 12:40:14 PM

(Mai Nygaard is Business Development Manager at Nomacorc LLC)

Phil, Get an education before you try to pontificate, maybe even do some research. Your ignorant perception of how TCA is formed is matched by your ignorance of the Chinese wine market. For examples, Great Wall is not the 'biggest Chinese winery'...Changyu is much bigger. Secondly, China only grows more wine grapes than Australia if you include all the table varieties as used for wine, which Chinese winemakers do, so you are only technically correct. And most grapes are grown in places even less suitable than the Hunter Valley, where it regularly pisses down just before vintage, so mouldy grapes are the norm. The only thing they do right is insist on cork, which is environmentally a more responsible closure than screw caps, no matter which way you try to spin it. Screw caps cannot match natural cork for regulated oxygenation during maturation in the bottle, essential to develop complexity in a quality red wine, and unattainable with a metal widget.

Posted by Dingo on 5/09/2008 1:35:02 PM

Phil, TCA is present in water. Drink some Adelaide water and let me know what you think about it. Put the fault in cork is very easy. To be clear, I don't care about the closure. I drink wine because like the experience, the brand the stlye, etc, not because of the closure. Corks have problems, as screwcap have. What is your reaction when you open a bottle of white wine and you feel a strong suphides odour coming out ? Do you complaint about the screwcap ?

Posted by Abagail korouplis on 8/09/2008 1:03:37 PM

The comments from Abagail Korouplis and Gazza from Vic relate to each other in that TCA in wine can have other sources than just the cork. The chlorine component of TCA can come from water or any number of chemical compounds present in the environment which might have somehow got in contact with the wine at any point during the production process from the vineyard on. On at least some occasions cork might be unfairly getting the blame for tainted wine. On wine maturation, wines can mature and develop perfectly well under screwcap, but when a cork does what is is supposed to it can be considered part of the aging process in itself, like a barrel, making a unique contribution to the aged wine.

Posted by TM on 10/09/2008 10:25:03 AM

Dear Phillip White, First, I would like to know how much is the screwcaps lobby paying you. It is not that what you have written is mostly bullshit and non-scientifically based, but the tone in which you write must mean that even being paid, you are powerless against nature. Yes, because there is a war being faught between alternative closures (not substitues) and natural ones. ALWAYS PREFER WHAT IS NATURAL! So, if you defend your positions that fiercly (even though they are false), I wonder how much is your reputation worth in dollars... Unfortunately, you also do not know anything at all about China: the milenar culture which privileges natural material for the food product whose consumption is developing most in the last years is indeed a deep, intelligent one. Even at humannity's highest level like Olympics, this has been recognised. How can you argue with that? Poor you, frustrated writer without any level at all... Thanks God Australia is a proven failure as a wine producer in the World, keep producing your soda kind of drink, and let the world enjoy the real pleasures in life. Ah, and again: get a job and a life, Mr. White!

Posted by The the on 17/09/2008 12:37:40 AM

Anonymous said... If you want to see how desperate the corkistas are becoming with all this environment nonsense, have a look at this "unbiased" BBC report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7623912.stm ...It seems to me the environment would be very well without men going about tearing the bark from trees.

Smuggler's jocks and auld crofters

by PHILIP WHITE - This was first published in The Independent Weekly in July 2008

“Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain, Caol Isla, Kilchoman, Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Port Charlotte, Port Ellen” … long-time readers of this writer may recall his mantra… Just off the record, he’s also been known to shout “Bruichladdich!” whilst approaching climax, triggering jealous howls about betrayal and infidelity from his fierce lover, who is not called Bruichladdich.

Fair enough, the beauty of Bruichladdich considered. Most lasses would be jealous; lads, too. They’d all want a share.

But this mystic Gaelic recitation has nothing to do with women. Those names belong to the malt whisky distilleries of Islay, a low, wild, sparsely-inhabited lump of stone and sodden grassed peat in the North Channel between Ulster and Argyll. These whiskies are very, very masculine. Think smuggler’s jocks, and auld crofters with gaps in their teeth where briar pipes live, smouldering through the stiffest spumy gales.

Learning this chant, in any order, for recitation at well-chosen moments, will leave observers wondering which sort of sacred and/or profane Druidic message and/or curse the speaker’s delivering. Recite it whilst jumping the queue at a bus stop, taking the seat of a Japanese student, confusing debt collectors, or convincing arresting officers that the forms will be far too difficult to fill in. Stare ’em in the eyes.

Malt whisky is made from barley. Ideally, one soaks dried local grains in local water, spreads them on a sprouting floor, and rakes them regularly until they shoot without mouldering. At this point, their starch is converting to sugar to provide the energy required for growth. Sugar is required to make alcohol. Before the grains burn all their sugar growing shoots, distillers arrest it by slowly roasting the grain with peat smoke.

The black, peaty water that oozes from the Islay soil imparts its iodine-rich aroma to the grains, a flavour further concentrated by the smoke, which is derived from peat - decaying vegetation - moistened for centuries by North Atlantic spindrift. The maltster exaggerates this by using peat from deeper down, where it’s less floral, and richer in phenolic oils. The lignins, the stiffeners in plant cell walls, rot, imparting their brown coal (lignite) flavour to the soil, which is sufficiently oily to smoulder away in a peat lug.

As the barley is dried and burnished, its sugars are trapped and caramelised. The grain is then milled to a rough flour, which is stirred into more local water, yeasted and fermented. It’s fast: only two days. It almost explodes: the most violent biochemical event your writer has witnessed was a ferment at Highland Park, on Orkney. A three-metre tall oak “washback” tank vibrated like a mighty engine, spouting great gushes of alcoholic barley milkshake through the breathing slots in its heavy lid. Scary.

This rough ale is then concentrated in a pot still, where it trebles in alcohol. The resultant weak spirit is distilled again, giving a very powerful alcohol, which is aged in old oak barrels, blended, and diluted with more local water to give a finished whisky of forty per cent alcohol or more.

Inexpensive whiskies are dilutions of such malts in simple unpeated grain spirit, which is like vodka. The best of these is Teacher’s Highland Cream, which has more malt whisky than most other blends, so it’s slightly more expensive than the discount brands like Johnny Walker red, Black Douglas, Dewars, Ballantine’s, or whatever.

Because great aged malts can cost well over $100 a bottle, they’re out of reach of most of us. So your writer, a brazen whisky sot - it’s genetic - has devised a cunning method of blending his own malt-rich tipple which tastes like it costs twice as much as it does. It’s a larger than usual initial investment, but provides a delicious result.

Buy two bottles of Teacher’s and one Laphroaig 10 year old pure malt. Tip them in a jug, stir them gently, and put your blend back in the bottles. Imbibe at cellar temperature, with a little rain if you must.

A good way of learning the Islay mantra is to buy a bottle from each distillery, in order, and practice their names as you tipple gently through the winter, learning their amazing natures.

To refresh his memory by plunging into such a cycle, this writer recently bought an Aardbeg 10 year old ($82.49; 46% alcohol). The bouquet was perfectly Islay with its acrid peat reek, and austere, iodine-like medicinal tang. It had a pleasant fleshy soapiness, too. But the flavour? (Insert abrupt monosyllabic Middle English curse.) Corked. Even the most profoundly confounding complexity that all the Druid spooks of Islay could instill were ruined by that lump of diseased Portuguese oak bark in its throat. That catty, rats’ nest ammonia-like taint of the dreaded trichloranisole beat the Celts hands down. Expensive tragedy. It’ll be interesting to see how the lads at the bottle-o respond when the Aardbeg returns for replacement.