Contaminant-Sniffing Dogs Save Bay Area Wineries From Shipping Tainted Wine

SONOMA (KPIX 5) -- Making a good bottle of wine requires a lot of steps and very talented people. It may also require now dogs as well.

At a Sonoma wine warehouse Monday, two normal-looking Labradors sniffing the stacks of wine barrels appeared to be bomb-sniffing dogs. But the labs, flown in from Chile, were sniffing instead for contaminants commonly known as "cork taint."

The chemicals - 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) and 2,4,6-tribromoanisole (TBA) - even in tiny amounts, cause musty aromas and flavors in wines. The chemicals are not found in wine itself but rather in the wood of barrels and corks.

The chemicals basically makes wine taste and smell like cardboard. A few years ago, a different barrel maker was sued by a vineyard for half a million dollars claiming contaminated barrels. Chilean wine barrel makers TN Coopers took notice and is pioneering the use of specially trained TCA and TBA sniffing dogs, starting their own training program with retired Chilean police officers as trainers.

TN Coopers General Manager Alex Schnaidt said the demand for the dogs' services has them very busy.

"The dogs have been here for eight days now and wineries are calling us to go there to visit them and we can only do two or three visits a day, otherwise the dogs are, they get tired," said Schnaidt.

TN Coopers says wineries are very sensitive to the dog inspections, says if any contaminated wine barrels are discovered, in one of their caves, it's a big deal. Two control samples were hidden in this warehouse. It took only about five minutes for the dogs to find the samples.

"One of the benefits of the dogs is that the dogs are not only going to tell you that there is something wrong but will point to exactly where it is coming from" says Schnaidt.

One winery that did speak to me on the phone said the dogs also give reassurance that wine cellars are clean if the dogs detect nothing.

Moda and Samba return to Chile this coming Friday.