Dear Lord ... when will wineries learn that plastic corks are not the best seal for a bottle of wine. When will they realize that they are taking perfectly good wine and ruining it, especially for those of us who have a wine cellar and time to age their creation. Tonight I pulled a bottle of old vines Zin out of the cellar in the hopes of enjoying it was some salmon (not a perfect pairing but what the heck). I had a heck of a time getting the capsule off the neck of the bottle because the underside was coated with a brownish tar, better known as leaked out wine. The culprit I could see, once I had removed the welded on plastic, was that the wine had leaked up the cork, coated the seal and seeped down the sides. I then saw that the offending cork was of the plastic variety and I shook my head sadly. The smell of long ago dried wine rose up from the neck and the capsule. I struggled to open the bottle (another drawback to plastic) and finally was able to dislodge the cork. The smell coming out of the glass was grapey, raisiny and sweet caramel; plum later emerged, but all sickeningly sweet. The palate was the proof of this spoiled pudding, oxidized sweet fruit slightly sherried and a touch of spicy on the finish, which has now (30 minutes later) disappeared and been replaced with the Sherry quality of sweet plums. I had about a half glass before it became to sickeningly sweet to stomach. So please Lord, let the wineries know that plastic cork just ain't cool.
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