Screw Cap Wine Bottles

[ibglowin]

I brought up this topic in another thread in which someone had purchased and was excited to finally taste a Barolo only to find out it had suffered from severe cork taint and was brown in color and undrinkable.

A recent article in wine spectator brought up the fact that serious wine collectors are now starting to flock towards collecting screw cap wines for the simple fact that it actually is a more secure (better) way of sealing out air and other undesirable smells or tastes over long periods of time. Corks can and do break down such as in this case. For a serious collector a screw cap is a type of "insurance" so to speak.

Its certainly NOT as romantic to twist off a screw cap vs popping a cork but quite honestly in a few short years we could all be buying screw cap bottling systems as cork wine bottles become harder and harder to find.

So what do you think?

 

[Bert]

I voted on 10 years, but I hope longer than that.....I think we can look at beer bottles, that most have twist-off caps [have for a long time], but we can still find crown cap bottles......there is just something about corks and wine, they just seem to go together..

 

[vcasey]

I voted 15 years. Most of us will not be able to afford the machinery a commercial winery uses for the screw caps. I personally like using the cork although I do have a couple of cases of screw cap bottles I use for test bottles and when I need some for one of the kegs and I don't want bottle shock.
There was a podcast I was listening to a few years ago and they invited this gentleman on who brought some wine bottled in the 1960s - still wonderful. I agree with Bert corks & wine just go together.

 

[Dean]

I think it will be much longer than that. The wine world is steeped in tradition, and although the US and Australia are paving the way with new techniques, closures, and other stuff, you are not seeing the old world (France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, etc) exactly embracing those methods. Yes, they are modernizing, but still are very resistant to change. Of course, because we live in the middle of the new world wine regions, we tend to forget how wine is regarded and treated in Europe and other parts of the world. I seriously don't see it happening for the next 30 years, and by that time another type of closure will be hailed as the next greatest thing.

Caps do seal well, but they also lack the breath-ability that corks provide as well. A sealed bottle doesn't change at the same rate as a corked bottle. I think more long term ageing affects needs to be studied before we conclude one is better than the other. In the mean time, that just means we have to sample more!

 

[ibglowin]

Perhaps its just a matter of educating the public......

An article from the Washington Post (albeit from 2004) about Screw Caps:

"Modern wine screw caps are highly engineered pieces of packaging technology, developed over many years to do the job that corks seem to do only imperfectly. That job is quite simple: to keep the wine inside the bottle and to seal out the air. For a while, some tried to turn cork's deficient sealing capability into a strength, arguing that a slight amount of air exchange is necessary for aging. However, it is now generally agreed that wine is naturally bottled with enough air dissolved in the liquid to permit it to mellow with age. Even if that were not so, modern screw tops are so precise that the winemaker can adjust the tightness of the seal to allow more or less outside air to enter, without the risk of cork taint."

I love the look and feel of cork but I think screw caps are indeed taking off in the industry. I think we will really be seeing screw caps take off in the next 2 years.

Dean, you must be in Heaven having the Olympics in your back yard!

 

[Goodfella]

I hope they never take over. I love popping corks!!!


I guess I associate screw caps with .79 cent soda's.

 

[ibglowin]

That is the gist of the problem, screw caps ARE associated with cheap wine and soda water!

It really just all boils down to educating the consumer........

More from the Washington Post article:

"Because of these and other advantages, many wineries have decided to chuck corks entirely and go with screw caps, even for their best wines. No country has done so more zealously than New Zealand.

In this country (USA), however, the vast majority of consumers invariably link screw caps with cheap wine. Why? For the past 30 years, those were the only wines that used screw caps. Once an association is made in the consumer's mind, changing it is an almost-insurmountable task. Consider Gallo. For 15-plus years, this former jug-wine juggernaut has saturated customers with advertising to promote its new image as a premium winery, which in fact it now is. Its Sonoma single vineyard bottlings, such as Frei Ranch, run $30 or more and are terrific. But if I bring a bottle of Gallo Frei Ranch to someone's house for dinner, I still feel like I should show them the receipt.

It's the same with screw tops. If I bring a $26 bottle of Goldwater Sauvignon Blanc, one of New Zealand's high-quality screw-top pioneers, to a party and everyone tells me they enjoyed it, I'm flattered to hear it. But I doubt I'd be as thrilled if someone would say, "What a great bottle of wine for five bucks."

I guess I associate screw caps with .79 cent soda's.
 

 

[JimCook]

Australia was one of the forefront testing grounds for the viability of screw caps with wine. I remember five years ago experiencing a bottle that was in the $50 range with a screw cap. I remember it vividly because it was the first blind tasting I was hosting and I had quickly wrapped all of the bottles in paper bags when they came in the front door. This particular one just seemed really stubborn when I was using the foil cutter on the waiter pull. You can imagine my surprise when I finally cut through the top and didn't find a cork inside.

Old habits die hard and corks have been used for 350+ years, although I have no problem with a screw top.


- Jim

 

[ibglowin]

That would have been a funny site to see for sure!

This particular one just seemed really stubborn when I was using the foil cutter on the waiter pull.  You can imagine my surprise when I finally cut through the top and didn't find a cork inside. 

 

[xanxer82]

What about the viability of synthetic corks?

 

[ibglowin]

They have their own set of problems it seems:


Synthetic vs. Natural Wine Corks

Synthetic Corks

 

[uavwmn]

I wish all screw caps would vanish from the wine world. sigh....

 

[ibglowin]

Unfortunately or fortunately I think they are here to stay.

I just started reading this a few days ago.

Only a few chapters in but so far an excellent history on wine and corks.

Picked it up from Amazon

George Taber also wrote Judgement of Paris another excellent read on the history of wine making in Napa Valley and how they beat the French in the 1976 blind taste test of French and American wines.

 

[barryjo]

Sure, screw tops now. But it will be just a matter of time before they come up with a pulltab top. YUCK!!!

 

[smurfe]

Guess I am one of the few here that like screw caps. I used to feel the same but now days, I really prefer the screw caps. It tells me one thing. That the winery cares about the quality of their product and for me, that's all that matters. Experience a corked wine once. It will almost turn you off wine for a while.

 

[smurfe]

Forgot to add though, I doubt they will ever take over the industry. Too many snobs to ever allow that to happen.

 

[MamaJ]

I have a nine-year-old son with a cork collection (about 900 or so to date). He gives me a hard time whenever I buy a screw-top bottle. One local wine shop will give him a bunch of old corks whenever we go in, so I can get away with buying a couple screw-tops there, but if I'm grabbing a bottle while grocery shopping, it has to have a cork.


I read "To Cork or Not To Cork" as well - enjoyed it. I'm glad that many people are able to put aside their ideas about screwtops and experiment with them. Also interesting to read about the synthetic corks. Just started reading "Judgment of Paris" last night!

 

[ibglowin]

That has so much history of winemaking not only in Napa but almost every winemaking region in the world. Really a great read!

Just started reading "Judgment of Paris" last night!

 

[Wade E]

Ive experienced the "Bad Cork" also once and it was actually from a member here who bought natural corks off of Ebay. I still much prefer corks over any other closure and hope nothing changes.