Corc vs. Cork stoppers

[Axel P]

I assume that the producers normally do use real corc in their "corc stoppers" I never had a single bottle with corcy notes when a corc stopper was applied to it. Even with old colheitas, which were laying down for quite some time with the stoppers it never appeared. Any idea why?

Axel

[DRT]

Is this a trick question?

[Alex Bridgeman]

When you say "cork stoppers", do you mean what I would call a "T stopper" - a short cork attached to a plastic cap that overlaps the glass of the bottle neck?

[Axel P]

Yes I do, sorry for misquoting this. I meant the ususal stopper that is in most Tawnies.

Axel

[DRT]

OK.

I think there a two possible reasons for this:

1. The vast majority of bottles sealed with T-stoppers spend their entire life standing up so the chances of a dodgy cork touching the wine are drastically reduced when compared with ports with driven corks.

2. Lots of T-stoppers seem to have some sort of glossy finish on the cork. This suggests to me that that the cork is "sealed" with some substance that prevents the wine coming into contact with the cork, even when lying down. I suspect that the reason for the coating on the cork is to provide easy extraction from the bottle so perhaps the cork/wine barrier is just a knock-on benefit?

Derek