“There was none of the expected crispness or fruit characteristics. Unfortunately, it had hints of wet cardboard and something that was akin to mouthwash.” Wine writer RICHARD CALVER gets a taste of cork taint. 

We tried some wines in Auckland, New Zealand, over the Christmas/New Year break.

My sister and her partner have an extensive collection of wines and to surprise us they opened a Vinoptima Ormond Gewurztraminer 2009.

My sister’s partner said that the Gisborne-based vineyard had decided to specialise in this German-originated varietal and he had been told that the aim of this winery was to produce the very best possible gewurztraminer wine.

He said he had been cellaring it for a special occasion and our visit from Oz was the trigger to open his sole bottle. We felt the love.

He said that he thought a quality brand of this varietal could keep its characteristics for more than 10 years. 

More about that expectation soon, but I must forewarn you that the outcome was a bit like this story about Putin, from that leader’s perspective:

Putin asks a magic fairy: “Where will I be this time next year?”

The fairy responds: “I see you in a limo driving through Kyiv, the war between Russia and Ukraine has ended, everyone is cheering.”
Putin asks:” Am I saluting them?”

“No,” says the fairy, “the coffin is closed.” 

For context, gewurztraminer is not often consumed in the Calver household, although I have in the past praised the local Vintner’s Daughter 2022 Gewurztraminer as an exemplar of the style when I tasted it at the cellar door.

That wine is aromatic, with a bouquet of spice and lychees. It finished sweet but that is good when consuming Asian food as it dampens the hit that chilli can give to the palate and is therefore a good wine to serve with often consumed Thai meals.

I understand that the local Linear winery also produces a Gewurztraminer 2022, but which finishes with an acidic crispness. It’s on my list of wines to try. My spreadsheet also tells me that in 2020 I tried a Delatite Deadman’s Hill Gewurztraminer 2015, grown from vines in the Victorian High Country, and had found it full bodied and mouth filling, finishing sweet. My notes also say that it had a musky, almost funky, taste that was not unpleasant. 

Alas, the same could not be said for the Vinoptima. The cork was brittle and hadn’t lasted well.

The wine had a good colour, almost amber. But it had very little on the nose.

On taste there was none of the expected crispness or fruit characteristic, think pineapple, that you get from the top wines of this varietal.

Instead and unfortunately it had hints of wet cardboard and something that was akin to mouthwash, neither of which flavours were welcome and seemed to be the product of cork taint.

We speculated that this wine, along with many others in the late 1990s and early 2000s, was the subject of less-than-ideal cork imported mainly from Portugal and France, the poor quality of which led to most NZ wine makers shifting to screw caps. I politely declined to finish my glass and the wine went down the sink, with my sister and partner conceding that the wine was spoiled and also disposing of their pours. 

The lesson is that some varietals should be consumed more immediately than others, especially if under cork.

While some brands say that gewurztraminer can be kept for more than 10 years, the fresh aromatic and fruit flavours that impress with this varietal should be enjoyed while the wine is relatively young… oops, maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned relatives. 

“In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.”

–Friedrich Nietzsche