1992 Leasingham Classic Clare Sparkling Shiraz
Cherry, raspberry and some leather and earthy elements to the nose. There is a delicious sweetness to the palate that is well countered by savoury nuances. Very enjoyable.
90/100

2000 Besserat de Bellefon Grande Tradition Champagne
Cheesy and toasty nose. Rounded mouthfeel. Lacks depth and finishes short.
83/100

2002 Petaluma Hanlin Hill Riesling
Lemon, orange peel and some toast aromas starting to develop. The palate is long and full, with incredible intensity. This wine holds so much future potential.
93/100

1978 Chateau La Tour Haut-Brion
Tobacco, bramble, ash and smoke on the nose. The tannins are fully resolved, leading to a medium bodied palate with soft fruits and good aged character. Very pleasant to drink wine at its peak.
89/100

1996 Chateau Léoville-Poyferré
Youthful nose of blackberry, spice, cassis and cedar. Intensely tannic on the palate, but the structure is good and this is going to improve greatly once the tannins soften and it takes on additional complexity. Needs time.
90/100

1981 Chateau Musar
Cherry/kirsch, smoked meats, earth and honey. The palate shows amazing fruit sweetness that is balanced superbly by aged earthy, spicy characters. Complex and long. If this was deconstructed too much you may be able to pick out many faults, but amazingly all mixed together they have achieved harmony.
94/100

2000 Hochar Père et Fils
Horsey, with earth, raspberry and a touch of VA. The palate is sweet and soft, it is quite drinkable but looked very simple in comparison to the older Musar had before. Will probably show better given time.
87/100

1995 Antinori Tignanello
Cocoa, blackcurrants, graphite and cedary nose. Lovely medium bodied, savoury palate with excellent balance.
91/100

1991 Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon
A bold nose, with tobacco, cassis and blackberry. The youthfulness of the wine is evident on the palate as well, with primary fruit still dominant. The tannin structure and overall build of the wine is such that I think this has the potential for greatness.
92/100

2004 Gangloff Côte-Rôtie La Barbarine
Must be close to 10% viognier in this, but it did not bother me as it did some others at the table. Very pretty nose, with lifted fragrant floral notes, apricot and pepper. Long and rich in the mouth with some spice evident. A little bit young still tonight, but very nice anyway.
90/100

2004 Tyrrell’s Shiraz Cabernet Vat 8
Earthy, with some raspberry notes as well. Bright, red fruited palate with some earthiness coming through in the background. Tannins are bold, but should settle with time.
88/100

1998 Pfeiffer Tokay Auslese
Caramel, toffee and apple aromas. Medium body and sweetness. Ready to drink now, it could do with some more complexity but I don’t think it has the structure to age much more.
85/100

1998 Müller-Catoir Haardter Mandelring Scheurebe Auslese
Passionfruit, spice, peach and pineapple aromas. Lovely, lingering sweetness to the palate and it just has the acid to keep it fresh and balanced. This style of wine is right up my alley.
93/100

1995 Hétszolo Tokaji Aszu 6 Puttonyos
Honey, coconut, pineapple and maple syrup. Rich, honey like palate, but with excellent complexity and acidity. Fantastic length, this was a great wine to finish the evening with.
93/100

Many people would be able to identify a bottle of wine that was truly faulty and, in a restaurant, ask for a replacement. But would you be able to tell what the fault was or what to blame for it? It is all to do with perception threshold. Different faults require different parts per thousand or even million to be perceived.

Some people are more sensitive to certain faults than others so while the host, who may taste the wine as it is brought to the table, is happily quaffing, one or more guests could be secretively retching into their napkins. Depending on how well you know your host and judging, diplomatically, how much of an ego dent your comments could produce, it might be worth discreetly asking people to have another careful sniff.

 At a wine faults workshop this week, it was made clear that a fault is only a fault if the people drinking the wine consider it to be. For example the "fault" brett - produced from brettanomyces yeast acting on the phenolic acids of the grape - is a characteristic that some tasters love and some winemakers deliberately introduce. It can produce strong animal characteristics that enhance a wine's complexity and increases some people's pleasure.

Of course it is very important to get the balance right because the smallest increase tips a wine over from animal (yum) to bretty (yuck).  And even in the lower doses some people adore the fragrant pong while others will recoil in horror at the filthy stench. Perception is all.

Then there is actual corkiness. Produced by TCA, TBA and TeCA it has various origins like the high levels of chlorine used to clean the winery and equipment, the breakdown of other cleaning agents by funghi in the winery - low ventilation and high humidity contibuting to high levels in the atmosphere.

The cork industry is keen to point out that it is not something inherently present in the corks more of a contamination at the winery. The plastic in alternative closure linings etc are equally susceptible to this contamination. With increased awareness, far higher standards of hygiene than ever before and alternative cleaning solutions available the problem should be getting better. However despite some high profile cases in California back in 2004, there are still many wineries taking the easy option and continuing bad practices.

At the other end is a sulfide problem that produces a tomato, truffle, cabbage, rubber character. This is reduction, the opposite of oxidation and the result of a complete seal which prevents any movement of oxygen into the wine. Unlike oxidation though, this can be corrected sometimes as simply as swirling the wine in the glass or decanting the bottle thereby allowing some air contact and dissipating the bad aromas.

This problem has been most associated with screwcaps which provide such an affective seal that all the positive benefits of cork permeability have been lost alongside the problems that can occur for freshness through excessive permeability.

New Zealand wineries have famously chosen to address this by slightly oxidising the wine before bottling in order to achieve balance once the wine is in bottle. As is often the case with the New World, they are quick to respond to problems and criticism.

However this is a dangerous and nervy solution and not always successful. Pascal Chatonnet, leading faults scientist, oenologist and consultant to wineries all over the world, argues that some of the essential character and originality is lost through this process and the overall quality and elegance is compromised, though this is not necessarily understood by the consumer as the original wine is not available to compare.

What is important to the cork industry is that while a consumer might recognise the wine is faulty, the only real language employed to describe or attribute the fault invokes cork. This is of major concern and is where the charm offensive needs to conentrate, for cork may not have played any part whatsoever.

For consumers the challenge to the industry as a whole is to find a closure with the correct level of permeability and which is kept free of contamination. It is in everybody's interests and with a more frank discussion opening up we can only hope that solutions won't be too far away.