Gluttons Club

The above link goes to an article on a group of winemakers who want to promote greater use of screwcaps and to correct some of the misconceptions regarding the tin top you see more and more often on bottles of wine these days. I'll use this occasion to bore you with a short essay on the topic.

At work, we end up discussing the issue of screwcaps at least once a day. Most consumers have by now realized that it is no longer a mark of quality but a growing trend based on useful technoloy. On occasion we get an older person who can only think of blue nun or gallo jug wine when they see a screw cap and avoid it at all costs. Sometimes what will happen is that people have no compunction about buying for themselves but when giving a gift or bringing somthing to a party, they avoid screwcaps to avoid looking cheap. This is perfectly understandable but hopefully as more wineries take up the screwcap trend, attitudes will change.

Many producers, particularly in Australia/NZ and American iconoclasts like Bonny Doon, use the screwcap on almost all their wines. The reasons are simple and will be further discussed below: the screwcap is simply a better closure technologically, the problem of "corked" wine is virtually eliminated, and the wine will not evolve as much, thus preserving the flavors and balance that the winemaker sought to capture when it was bottled.

On the first point, the modern screwcap, known as a Stelvin closure, is a simple solution to a simple problem; how to close a vessel containing a liquid. Rather than using a cork, which was all the rage in the 13th century, a screwtop captures the essence of all the benefits of modern technology. It also can be manufactured just about anywhere while corks are harvested almost exclusively in Portugal. And if you think that they just use it because it's cheaper, you should know that the stelvin actually costs slightly more to use per bottle than cork does, indicating that it is a choice based on quality, not cost.

The second reason concerns the taint that wine that is cork-stopped is susceptible to. "Corked" wine is that which is affected by a fungus called TCA that occurs on some corks. Wines afflicted with this fungus have strong odors of wet cardboard and taste fairly awful. The taint can be mild, leaving some sippers to think the wine is simply not very good, or it can make a wine unpalatable to even the least discerning taster. Though it is difficult to know for sure given that not all corked wines are returned, approximately 5% of all wines with cork closures are tainted. By contrast, fewer than 1% of all screwcap wines suffer. If you're a producer in Australia, perhaps as far from Portugal as you can get without leaving the planet, it simply makes sense. For producers everywhere else, it simply eliminates the risk of spoiled wine. Nothing sucks the joy out of that special bottle you were saving than to find it corked upon opening. A screwcap may take away from the ceremony of uncorking a nice bottle but if it tastes the way it is supposed to, no one will care after a few sips.

The third point gets into matters more complex. In the bottle, wine will change and develop no matter how it is closed. A little air helps this process along. The traditional cork is somewhat porous allowing a small amount of air to seep in. This is trouble when too much air seeps in as when a cork dries and shrinks but for many wines that require ageing, this seepage actually helps it develop. Of course a screwcap is airtight so purists maintain that it will never fully replace the cork. However, given that less than 15% of all wine produced today is meant to be aged, this isn't much of a concern. Just in case, I've noticed that many producers who use screwcaps on their less expensive wines use corks on their premiere wines; either to provide the benefit of air contact or an admission that you can't charge more than a certain amount for screwcap wine.

The way that the screwcap is presented is interesting in that you get a feel for how the producer wants to present it. Some bottles, like Kim Crawford NZ Sauvignon Blanc, integrate the cap into the packaging seamlessly so you may not notice until you go to open it. Others, like Murphy Good's Tin Roof wines, call attention to it (get it, 'tin roof'?) while Two Tone Farms defies convention with it's slogan: "Napa Comes Unscrewed."

My favorite screwcap related story was told by a customer who came in recently. He had one of those silly rabbit corkscrews and was making a big deal out of how cool it was with some friends at his dinner party. He plunged the screw into a bottle but couldn't get it to pull out. A closer look showed that the bottle had a screwcap, not a cork. This story shows both how far along the trend has come and also how ridiculously over-engineered those damn rabbits are. Personally, I'd like to see more screwcaps for no other reason than to see that product fade from existence. Add to that the benefits of technology and fewer tainted bottles and I have absolutely no issues with it.

Twist or Pop but enjoy the wine,
Matt