Yes it works. It’s only certain types (must contain polyethylene) and not all brands of ‘cling film’ (snap wrap) do, so check.
Wineries have used it on TCA (2,4,6-trichloroanisole) contaminated barrels for some time, and it will bind with the substance.
TCA is a compound (derived from a naturally occurring mould) which occurs in wood (and other plants) treated with chlorine-based sterilising agents (it’s actually a lot more complicated that that but I’m sure you can google for more).
So, technically, ‘corked’ is incorrect as the wine can get the taint from any wood that it comes into contact with. But in practice that really is only a cork, because a contaminated barrel’s contents shouldn’t get to the bottling line.
TCA cannot do you any harm. You find it in other widely available goods. Packeted vegetables such as salad leaves and carrots, Tea-Tree oil (used in many shampoos) and even bottled mineral water.
The problem is that it is not only TCA that it binds with, and it affects/reduces some of the flavour compounds in wine, notably those that taste of fruit (esters). Nor is it 100% effective (unsurprisingly) at binding with the TCA, especially unless left for several days, which in itself will affect the wine’s flavour.
To be honest I tried it a couple of times, out of ‘novelty value’ interest but I haven’t bothered for a long time. But it’s cheap, so it’s worth a try I guess. Just leave the wine in a jug with the polyethylene at least overnight.
Three further things to note:
TCA has a low boiling point and so you can cook with ‘corked’ wine and the taint will not survive the process (unfortunately it’s not low enough for this to be able to rescue the wine).
If the sterilisation of the raw cork-oak bark is accomplished without using a chlorine-based agent, then the taint does not develop in the first place (although other anisoles can, but they are less pervasive). Sterilising with ozone is effective in this regard, and a few companies, notably one called DIAM are doing just that (ozone is a lot more expensive than chlorine, however, as anyone who has switched their swimming pool regime from one to the other can attest).
Cork tainted wines were in large part due to batch-sterilisation and ignorance/denial of the problem on the part of Portuguese cork oak farmers (almost all of the world’s cork comes from southern Portugal). Acknowledgement of the issue (after threat of lost business to alternative closures like screw-caps), centralised sanitation, better processing hygiene and storage of corks (as well as ozone and irradiation as alternatives) have all led to an incidence rate of corked wine far, far less than it used to be, although it will never be eliminated entirely. Human susceptibility to TCA is as low as 1ng/L (nanogram per litre) or 1PPT (part per trillion), which is almost homeopathic in its weakness (one part per trillion is one second in three hundred and twenty centuries) so not a lot is needed. I can usually smell a corked wine opened at the next table (this back when there were places called ‘restaurants’. Or maybe I am dreaming that.)
Full story/proof about cling film, here:
Santé!