Is there any reason to sniff a cork after opening a bottle of wine?

Question

I was trained iin the culinary institute of america and there they discouraged this practice saying no information about the wine could be attained by sniffing the cork. Since then I have run into many people who disagree with this (conneisueres, chefs and even sommeliers) theory. Can anyone give a definitive answer on this or is it just a gray area?

So far none of the answers are measuring up. I just want to know if there is any proven reason to smell a cork to be able to know something about the wine befor drinking it.

By the way I never sniff the cork. But I have gotten in plenty of discussions about this practice. I paid to go to a wine course a while back, and in my opinion the sommelier (and I use that term lightly) was a total hack. He instructed everyone to smell the cork before tasting the wine. I set out to prove him wrong but the course was full of rookies and everyone looked at me like I was so ignorant.

Answer 1

So many people have answered you smell it to know if the wine has gone bad, but what are you doing? Drinking wine? Or eating cork? Who cares if the cork smells bad. Smell the wine!!

There is no reason to smell the cork. As others have said, you are presented the cork to:
1. See that it matches the bottle if there is any printing on it (not really a concern unless you are buying ultra spendy wine that may have been counterfeited)
2. See that the cork is intact and sound, indicating the wine has been stored properly (again, probably doesn't really matter since hardly anyone is drinking '42 Lafite or something)

Smelling the cork will rarely tell you if the wine itself is corked. I've had bad smelling corks come from just fine wine and I've had normal smelling corks come from wines corked so bad you could smell them with the bottle just sitting there.

And cork taint does not come from air, or improper storage, or anything else like that. It comes from a compound (2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA)) produced by bacteria naturally occuring in the cork bark. People referring to oxidation, reduction and all these other wine defects as cork taint are simply mistaken.

Don't sniff your cork. Sniff your wine.

Answer 2

No.

The reason people do it to attempt to identify the 'off' aromas of a corked wine, i.e. one affected by TCA.

(However I sometimes think it is done by sommeliers in restaurants to discourage customers from rejecting the wine as bad when they taste if -- after all -- the sommelier snifed the cork and passed it!)

It is rare that a corked wine (i.e affected by TCA) can be detected by sniffing the cork, the only real test is to smell/taste the wine.

It doesn't matter what the condition is of the cork as long as the wine is good. A dry/crumbly/rotten cork may - just may - give advance warning that the wine is iffy, but if the wine tastes good then who cares what condition the cork is in.

So, it doesn'tharm to sniff the cork but it doesn't really do anything useful, apart from being part of the restaurant ritual.

Answer 3

Hey White Boy in Mex.,

NOPE!

The only reason that you would inspect the cork, is to determine if the wine has been against it. You would do this by slightly squeezing the cork. When you squeeze the cork, small drops of wine should come out. If there were small crystals on the cork, it was up right and air has gotten into the bottle. If there was no moisture or if the cork was hard, same result, air has gotten in.

Sommeliers make so much damned money they are just protecting their jobs. My advice to anyone eating at a restaurant that I manage, the best wine for that dish? It should be the wine you like!

The only thing that you should use your nose for is to smell the bouquet of the wine, with your nose firmly planted in that glass!

We, the customer, pay you, the Chef, to come up with great ways of preparing food, we love your suggestion, but hate it when a snooty waiter/sommelier doesn't seem to like our less than lack luster wine choice! Trust me, if we make a bad wine choice, we will know it when trying to eat your wonderful dish. I have made mistakes on several occasions. I simply set my wine aside and either order something else, or just drink water. No harm done!

Stop sniffing your cork!

James in San Diego

Answer 4

There's no reason to sniff a cork. At best, it will have a bit of wine on it and smell like the wine, at worst it smells like a smelly piece of cork. You shoudl examine the cork, to see whether or not it held the wine sealed inside (you can tell if the whole cork is purple that it didn't!), and you should definately sniff the wine in the glass before drinking it- aroma is an important element- but sniffing the cork just shows other people that you don't know what you're doing.

Answer 5

Hey, that's a good question... Yes there is a reason to smell the cork: if it smell like wet cardboard or dusty the wine may be corked, it is just a "clue' to the state of the wine and you still have to taste it... If the cork smell winey or as no smell, the wine should be fine (still have a risk of it being oxidized).
It is just a "light" indication and should be done just as you open the wine. When you present the wine to a customer it is for inspection of the state of the cork: you should already know if the wine is in perfect state (in top restaurant...)

Answer 6

I work in the restaurant industry and have been told that when someone sniffs the cork, it's really just a formality. Eventhough, the cork is what makes or breaks the quality of the wine. If you have a bad cork, then the wine is bad and vice versa. Smelling the wine on the cork, be it sweet or bitter, will tell the conneisuer whether or not the bottle has been corked properly and if the wine is good.

Answer 7

The bark of the cork tree, from which cork stoppers are made, can contain a bacterium which can cause the wine to become corked and emit a definite wet cardboard smell. However, You're better to smell the wine after swirling it.
Most people haven't got a clue what they're doing when it comes to wine, that's why Yellowtail is the number one selling red in the world.

Answer 8

Not all those folks who drink wine have been trained in the culinary institute. If you're serving the wine to them, the accepted practice is still to offer the cork to the head of the table for sniffing.'

Answer 9

It can give you a sense of how the wine will taste, since smell is a big part of how something tastes. And, if the cork smells like vinegar, the wine's gone bad for sure.

Answer 10

Yes, they sniff a cork to tell if the cork has rotted.

If the cork smells like cardboard (or musty) then that means that air has leaked into the bottle because of a bad cork or the wine wasn't bottled right. This air usually makes the wine go bad and the cork too. It is called "corked" wine