We have all been there. You open the bottle and pour your first glass. The color is almost always fine but you know you are in trouble as soon as you smell the wine. Musty, no fruit, flat, wet cardboard… yes, my friends, you have a corked wine on your hands.

This is caused by a cork tainted with Trichloroanisole, or TCA for short. Some also blame barrels and contaminated wood in the cellar but to me it’s mostly the corks fault (after all, we don’t call it, “barreled”). Somewhere between 3 and 7% of all wine sealed under cork are affected by this problem and there is not a whole lot a winery can do to prevent it but adopt screw caps.

So it was with a great deal of skepticism that I scrutinized the following wine hack sent to me by a reader. Since it was published in the Los Angeles Times, I will give it the benefit of the doubt but it seems unbelievable.

Basically, the article calls for pouring the corked wine over plastic wrap in a pitcher and soaking for a few minutes. The author claims that the TCA is attracted to the plastic and once the plastic is removed the wine can be enjoyed without this defect. This is either the greatest wine hack of all time or an elaborate hoax. I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has tried this with or without success.

Until I try this on my next corked bottle, Vino Emptor