Isvea Wine Lab and discussion about cork taint

Last week we went on a field trip to the Enological laboratory of Isvea in Siena. This lab combines chemistry and biology to study wines and issue certificates to manufacturers. Though I don’t know very much about wine making, I was very impressed and excited by the work they were doing. When we walked into the chemistry lab we saw rows of opened containers of wine in the process of being analysed. We saw automated machines that measure the acidity and sugar content of the wines. Another machine measured concentration of heavy metals, particularly copper, using a technique called spectrophotometery, which uses color absorption as a scale. In the biology section, we heard a gentleman talk about the how different bacteria develop in wines at different stages of fermentation, and how some bacteria are good and some are not. Most of this was incomprehensible to me, since I understand neither wine making nor biology. What I wanted to learn was how these bacteria might affect the taste of the wine. I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to ask this question clearly.
What I do want to talk about is a conversation I had in the chemistry lab about wine corks. I wanted to know how the packaging of wine might affect its quality. It seems that the production of good wine is based largely on the production of good grapes. If a manufacturer has the right combination of growing conditions for the type of grape, the wine can only be so poor. One of the few forms of contamination that can occur in the processing of the wine comes from the cork. Cork taint is a condition where the natural flavor of the wine is overpowered by an unsavory flavor similar to wet newspaper. This unpleasant flavour comes from the presence of 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) which can contaminate corks through industrial chemical processes. TCA is harmless to humans, but significantly annoying enough to warrant considerable research in recent years.
At the lab I learned about research being done to produce plastic corks. Using plastic eliminates the possibility of cork taint, but has limitations. Plastic corks are only good for about one year. After that they become hard and shrink, allowing air to get into the bottle and turn the wine into vinegar. The shrinking problem can also happen with cork corks, which is why one should store wine bottles upside down.

Isvea Lab Site, I’m sorry if it is in Italian
http://www.isvea.it/index.htm

More info on cork taint
http://blogcritics.org/tastes/article/cork-taint-something-to-wine-about/