Quinta do Infantado Tawny Porto Medium-Dry (Douro) – After much dalliance upon the occasion of this producer’s first appearance on U.S. shores, I gave up ever buying their wines, due to the vast majority of them (approaching 90%) being corked...but only mine. Everyone else seemed to be able to enjoy the wine in untainted form. I can certainly claim no evidence of systemic taint, and in fact it seemed to be very much a personal vendetta the TCA gods were waging against me (and, unfortunately, against the producer’s wines when they were so unlucky as to be carried home by me, or opened by someone else in my house), but trying to find an intact bottle was just hopeless. So after a hiatus of a few years, I decided to dip my toe in these stanky waters once more. The result? What else? Corked. Corked into oblivion. Obviously, I am not meant to own or drink these wines. (9/09)
Let me stress, per the comments below: this is, as far as I can tell, my issue and my issue only. I am personally cursed by being virtually unable to experience a non-corked Infantado. My results should not -- and in fact, have not -- been replicated by others.
2 comments:
Hi Thor,
Very sorry to read about your bad experiences with Quinta do Infantado.
We are not immune to TCA, as any other wine producer that uses cork to close the bottles, but we do try to avoid it.
I do not understand when you say 90% of our wines are corked. Of course, 1 bottle out of 1 corked will make for 100%.
I do open a lot of bottles, both here at the winery and when traveling, and my perception is that we have much less tainted bottles today.
I think this is due to our better quality control but also to the fact that the portuguese cork industry is making a great effort to minimize TCA contamination in every step of corks production.
Please send me your address to my mail (quinta@quintadoinfantado.pt) and i'll try to replace your defective bottle.
best regards,
joão roseira, Quinta do Infantado, Douro Valley, Portugal
Sorry, João, apparently my post was unclear. 90% of my bottles have been corked. I've had one other wine experience like this (the Edmunds St. John "Bone-Jolly" Gamay), in which all my bottles -- or bottles brought to my house, or opened in my presence -- were corked, and seemingly no one else's were. I certainly do not mean to suggest that 90% of your entire production is corked. I will edit the note to better reflect this.
It is not necessary to replace the bottle, but thank you for the offer.
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