Screw Top Wine

I thought the wine wasn't supposed to breathe in the bottle? Last I remember was that screw tops, when done properly, were superior but virtually impossible to impose on the market owing to aesthetics and nostalgia.

Screw tops are, of course, associated with cheap and nasty wines (because cheap and nasty buyers don't mind the breach of tradition).

Thomas

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Originally posted by Thomas K:
Last I remember was that screw tops were superior

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Nothing to do with you being German, eh?

I've no idea about wine but the decline in the popularity of cork has serious implications for the wildlife which lives in the cork growing areas of Iberia, especially eagles.Let's keep the big birds flying and drink out of bottles with cork.

I am not a big drinker of twist-cap wines, but I enjoy reading the reviews.

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Just unlucky or is there something with cheap metal tops that don't allow the wine to breath

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You were unlucky.

The cork is responsible for killing many otherwise good bottles of wine each year, but because of snobbery and pretension it's use carries on. Nowhere else would such a poor tool be continually used with such a expensive, valuable contents. Many wine producers suffer up to 10% of their stock being damaged due to the cork, in any other industry this would be a disaster.

I have to keep a watching eye on the vintage port as the high alcohol content rots the bloody things given enough time - getting the things out of a port bottle can be a challenge, which is why the well-equipped with the really expensive stuff use special tongs and remove the entire neck, cork intact!

Those wierd plastic ones are good, I've never had a ruined bottle of wine with one of those in and you can still have the fulfilling ritual of removing them. I have to confess, it does appeal to the ritualistic vinyl-spinner in me

Many of the Cape region vintners rate screwtops as superior to cork and are increasing their useage, but the association of screwtops with poor quality wine stands, at present.

Andy.

Andrew Weekes talking bollocks again. A man who quotes a line from a Linn LP12 manual to back his argument and yet dissects a Lingo to suit his own listening tastes.

Upto 10%!

Well I suppose 2-5% is "upto" 10%. 2-4% is the figure that all wines are tainted by some sort of taint and of which a small % of that, is caused by cork.

Cork is a unique substance and a long-proven closure for wine. No other stopper combines cork's inert nature, impermeability to liquids, flexibility, sealing ability and resilience. It is the only stopper to be used successfully on "vintage" wines.

It is also accepted that you have to re-cork a vintage wine /port.

Wine/port should be stored at a constant 10-12 degrees C with no vibration. If it is stored like this, one could use synthetic cork. Screw cap could eventually rust causing leakage.

Screw-capped wine is not made for long term storage and is no reflection on the quality of wine.

I went to a tasting the other night, many of the wineries down here have been swayed by the screw-cap revolution... there's now debate as to their superiority - the chap conducting the tasting confirmed he'd recently had two "corked" bottles from a case, on a screw-cap vintage.

Corks = flat earth?

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

You could follow Micks advice and try sticking a cork in each ear.

P - more like plonk than barollo.

Penfolds have commented in their "frequent buyer" magazine on the failure rate of cork stoppers and they ran some experiments with screw top wine bottles.

It is a pity aboout the wild life implications of reducing the need for cork but reducing the wastage on wine (espcially after shipping it half way around the world) has other eco benefits.

Derek

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count.d

I'm not sure what I've done to deserve that tirade, but...

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A man who quotes a line from a Linn LP12 manual to back his argument and yet dissects a Lingo to suit his own listening tastes.

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I fail to see ANY relation between the two - where you the guy that told me I'd 'ruin' my LP12 - hmmmm.

Anyway, that's totally off-topic, so discuss this: -

"Finding an alternative to cork has become imperative", according to Don Tooth, managing director of Anglo-American Farms, which owns Vergelegen. "Our quality has improved tremendously, but these gains are diminished by the number of bottles spoilt by cork taint," he said. "No industry could survive having 10 percent of its product regarded as defective."

Source: Wine Spectator

Most industry sources are in agreement that around 5% of wine suffers cork taint, even at the lower end you quote it's too high - I bet no-one would argue that 2% would be an acceptable failure rate for their Naim equipment, for example.

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Screw-capped wine is not made for long term storage

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But there is no evidence to support this, one way or the other. The industry hasn't done any long term analysis, so you cannot state this categorically, unless you can provide evidence to the contrary, which I'm totally open to?

Andy.

[This message was edited by Andrew L. Weekes on MONDAY 01 March 2004 at 13:39.]

"Screw cap could eventually rust causing leakage. "

Please correct me if I'm wrong about this but isn't the reason that wine bottles should be stored on their sides is to keep the cork moist and hence sealed. This is not an issue with screw caps or the syntheitc bungs used by many wines. Therefore couldn't the bottles be stored standing up?

If anyone is more interested in this professionally (Garyi) the following report may be of interest - you may be able to obtain a copy?

Godden P, Francis L, Field J et al 2001 Wine bottle closures: physical characteristics and effect on composition and sensory properties of a Semillon wine. 1. Performance up to 20 months post-bottling. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research 7:64-105

This report also mentions a follow-up on the long term analysis of screwtops vis-a-vis other closures, since wines intended for storage may well need a permeability that the screwtop does not offer, in order to allow maturation in the bottle.

Seagull,

Interesting point - the ability to store a bottle upright would be a big advantage with wines such as port, where the crust formation would at least settle in the bottom of the bottle, rather than the side, making decanting easier. Vintage port is one of those wines were screwtops are unlikely to be suitable though, for the reason above.

Andy.

"getting the things out of a port bottle can be a challenge"

Of course for the finest bottles one is required to have a cavalry officer remove it with a clean strike of his sabre.

Matthew

Yeah, screw tops have no soul. Whether they work technically is beyond me, but they don't satisfy on a visceral level. There's something about the process of making a thing that makes it beautiful, non?

I am interested to hear comments about cork production declining. I thought it was still rising, partly because of new farming techniques and partly because more actual land was being planted with cork in Spain and Portugal.

Don't know much about the benefits for wildlife, but no doubt since the trees aren't harvested for the first 25 years of their lives, and thereafter only every 8-10 years, the animals'n'stuff have a fair bit of peace and quiet.

For wine producers, I guess cork-related wastage is very unsatisfactory. As a mere consumer, I can't say I mind. It's not like it affects an essential purchase - only a decadent one. A bit of risk adds to the fun. A long while back I worked for a year in a very nice restaurant. I opened plenty of wine, and only ever came across one bottle that was truly 'corked'. Never seen one since. Guess I've been lucky, but for now I'm still on the side of 'cork where we can'...save screw-tops for soda.

Whatever. Screw caps are better than plastic corks which screw up my Screwpulls.

You can't draw moustaches and drag queen eyebrows on yourself with burnt screw caps after dinner, can you? Somewhat of a disadvantage.

throb

Scruples are for girly men.

Get youself a Waiters Freind and watch your biceps bulge.

P

Does anyone want to know what the best cork screw is?

Or not?

Yes its by screwpull and its bloody marvelous, totally over engineered and not a bit of plastic on it. Its the LM 2000 and can be found out http://www.screwpull.co.uk/

I tend to prefer to use the ones styled like the 'waiters corckscrew' listed on that web site site, as they have a little blade to help cut the foil.

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Just unlucky or is there something with cheap metal tops that don't allow the wine to breath?

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I don't think that theory holds water (or wine - ha bloody ha) Garyi.

I've just had a screw top Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from Messrs T.E. and S. Cohen and they tasted just fine to me.

It it now becoming the rule not the exception to find NZ wines capped with a Stelvin closure.

Even our best Pinot Noir brands are under screwcap now.

That says everything to me about innovation and putting quality before snobbery and pretension.

You can stick your nostalgia and yes, we had a cork taint problem of anything up to 15% among certain regions.

Screwcap is here to stay and it will be fine Bordeaux that will finally hang on while the rest of the new world wine nations force the change along with the dumming down of the old world to keep pace with the new.

The only thing that likes change after all is a wet baby.

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
"getting the things out of a port bottle can be a challenge"

Of course for the finest bottles one is required to have a cavalry officer remove it with a clean strike of his sabre.

Matthew

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I've seen this attempted twice - once successfully, once, well, it was a bit of a mess...
Only to be attempted with champagne as the pressure blows the glass shards away from the bottle..
It is clearly dangerous and requires a steady hand, so is innevitably only tried when already completely pissed...

I've tried to picture the same wine with the three different closures, but I would be dissapointed with anything other than cork. This might seem snobbish and pretentious, but that's what I am.
Hachette says that cork is still the best closure medium but fails to back up the claim. I can't believe that a synthetic closure is not superior from a quality control/consistency POV, but it does remove one of the unique characteristics of wine (or Whiskey even). My parents-in-law actually clap their hands to celebrate the "pop" of a wine cork, so a screw cap doesn't really satisfy that emotional response. We've had clearly corked wine, or even worse, wine where we're not sure whether it's corked or just needs to be decanted for a while, but I would still accept these disadvantages in return for that "pop".


Brian

The quintessential hallucinogenic tonic wine is ofcourse produced by the fine monks of Buckfast Abbey. Long appreciated by denizens of county Armagh (N Ireland), I believe certain ethnic groups in Glasgow favour this fine appellation. I'm fondly reminded of its immediate gagocity, perhaps a slug or two later notes of rotten spuds, followed by hints of petrol or concorde fumes, the vibrancy of bostick or other high quality glue, then a certain activation of the nitrous oxide pathway, the tongue lolls, whooshing in the brain, the inevitable grasp of incipient delerium. Bruises and violent illness accrue.

John

What's with the fuss?

We buy wine from our local Co-op. If we have a bad bottle we take it back and they give us 2 bottles in return for the inconvenience?

I rather like corked wine.

Actually

Hic

P