by Jim Gordon

If you've ever seen a person send back a bottle of wine in a restaurant, you may have wondered why. There's one main reason: the wine was "corked" or "corky," and it's a scene for which every wine drinker should rehearse.

Almost all wines are literally corked, but they're only "corky" if they have a musty smell and flat, dry taste that comes from a tainted cork that has in turn tainted the wine. Once you've smelled a corky wine, you'll remember it. The odor is not always powerful, but it is distinctive, like the perfume of damp newspapers slowly nurturing mildew in your grandpa's basement.

I hate to come upon one of these in a restaurant. Partly because I don't like to make waves, and partly because I'm never sure if the waiter will believe me that the wine is bad. But when you encounter a corky bottle you have to take a deep breath and politely but firmly tell the waiter that there is something wrong with this bottle and that you'd like to have another one instead. Do it for yourself and for all us other wine drinkers out there who wish that restaurants and retailers knew more about this problem.

Here's what you do. When the waiter gives you a taste, keep the base of the glass on the table, grip it by the stem and gently swirl it a couple of turns. This shoots the wine up on the sides of the glass, and as it drips down it evaporates, giving you more to smell. Take a good whiff of it and then taste a sip. If you get that musty impression instead of a nice perfume of fruit and spice, then you probably have a corky bottle.

Say, "I'm sorry, but I think this is a bad bottle, and I'd like to send it back."

Any good waiter or wine steward will smell it and know that you are right, and then replace the bottle without making you feel like an idiot. Most diplomatic waiters and wine stewards will take the bottle back even if they think you are wrong. If the waiter doesn't want to cooperate, then ask that the manager or wine steward try it. This takes the waiter off the hook and can improve your chances of success.

The restaurant should bring you a new bottle of the same wine. But some that are naïve will insist on bringing you another type of wine because they don't understand corkiness themselves. They're afraid that you just don't appreciate the "earthy" or "mineral" qualities of the first wine that may have nothing to do with a bad cork.

In these cases, I just cave in and make another selection, because it's not a cut and dried situation. Sometimes other problems in a wine can taste like corkiness and even the experts can't always tell the difference.