The Great TCA Debate

[g-man]

I wonder if TCA, like sediment, will sink to the bottom of the port.

Also referring to "muted fruit". That's so hard to quantify. I think it's a fairly statement to say that TCA CAN mute the flavor of port.
But some of these young ports are such fruit monsters that if it was a low threshold of TCA, I'd very much doubt you were suspect the bottle as off.
Plus the alcohol/sugars/glycerin will certainly enhance the available sweetness and fruit you find in young ports.

[Alex Bridgeman]

This has been a very interesting thread to read. Thanks to everyone and especially Shawn, for the thoughts so far. As I read through everything written to date I did wonder about the general consensus that TCA cannot develop in the bottle and I'd like to put a though to others for comment:

1) Suppose your source of TCA is a contaminated cork.
2) When corks are first inserted into bottles, the fine pores in the corks used for vintage port are virtually impenetrable (consider what a cork looks like when pulled out of a bottle of the most recently shipped vintage). The only contact between cork and port is the very bottom of the cork.
3) Over time, the cork becomes more porous or the port forces its way further into the cork (consider how corks look after 10, 20 and 30+ years).

So, if the cork is the source of TCA, could the level of contamination in a bottle increase over time as more of the cork is penetrated by port? Could a massively fruity port with a very low level of contamination appear to be a decent, fruity port (flattened slightly and imperceptably by a low level of TCA)? Over time, could the cork release more TCA into the contents of the bottle and so the port become more badly affected?

I have no eveidence to back this up other than some empirical evidence of what corks look like when drawn from bottles of port of differing ages.