Lets have some controversy...again!

So here we are forumites.......lalala, corks do not breathe!

http://wine.appellationamerica.com/wine ... reath.html

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[James Roscoe]

So what does a cork do other than destroy 4% - 10% of the wines it closes? It makes a nice sound when it pops out of a bottle of wine, but I would give it up in a heart beat to know my wine was free of TCA. It keeps some people employed I suppose. Ladeeda!

It would be interesting to learn if there have been any tastings done on aged wines with screwcap enclosures. Or are screwcaps still too new ?

It would be interesting to learn if there have been any tastings done on aged wines with screwcap enclosures. Or are screwcaps still too new ?

On my only visit to Australia 13 years ago, that's 1995, I distinctly recall tasting a Claire Valley Riesling that was 20+ years old from the 1970s bottled with screwcap.
And, in a conversation with the then head winemaker of Penfolds when they were trialling consumer acceptance (in the UK) of screwcaps on their red Bin 2 (Shiraz/Mataro?) in the early/mid 1990s, he said that if he had his way, he would bottle Grange in screwcap and that they had been testing this closure for 20 years at the time ...

And people (definitely in most of France) think this is a new issue, and also they think (in France) invented by the Swiss (who have also admittedly used screwcap on wines, but not necessarily for ageing for many years).

Oh dear, now then Wink, repeat after me: "I must not get involved in screwcap vs cork discussions" "I must not get involved in screwcap vs cork discussions" "I must not get involved in screwcap vs cork discussions" "I must not get involved in screwcap vs cork discussions" ... oh, dear, I got stuck

Wink
I have a vague recollection that screwcaps were a French invention (dangle a worm on a string and see the sane person return to the wine seal debate )
regards
Ian

It would be interesting to learn if there have been any tastings done on aged wines with screwcap enclosures. Or are screwcaps still too new ?

Haut Brion was bottled with a Stelvin closure in 1971-72; the wine was taste-tested in 1978 and found flawless.

The Aussies have long-standing trials. Here's a paper from 2001.
Bob, if you want to drag this dead horse out again, can we at least talk about a new product? Perhaps the Vino-Lok?

Let’s not confuse breathing with ingress.

Salute

[David M. Bueker]

I am so sick of this debate. Corks are flawed, badly flawed.

Refusing to change is refusing to admit the problem. every time this debate comes up it's "why haven't they done a trial with wine XYZ?" I am so sick of it.

Next time you have a corked wine ask yourself if you could have been better off. I'm cellaring about 60 bottles of screwcapped wine & the number continues to grow. I never think twice about a screw cap.

Dave thinks.....>Bob, if you want to drag this dead horse out again, can we at least talk about a new product? Perhaps the Vino-Lok?

Slow day around here after all the rodeo festivities!

So what does a cork do other than destroy 4% - 10% of the wines it closes? It makes a nice sound when it pops out of a bottle of wine, but I would give it up in a heart beat to know my wine was free of TCA. It keeps some people employed I suppose. Ladeeda!

Agreed James. I also assume you're just mentioning destruction by TCA. Don't forget the damn things can also dry out and put a wine on the fast-track to oxidation hell. I love screwcaps. I feel secure buying bottles with that closure (one reason I bought more of JJ Christoffel's Erdener Treppchen, Selbach-Oster's Zeltinger Schlossberg and Jakoby Mathy's Kinheimer Rosenberg Spatlesen in 06 than other bottles - all are closed with screwcaps!), because I've not had a single wine under screwcap that was either TCAed or oxidised. And I see no reason why they cannot age, given the right liner selection.

It would be interesting to learn if there have been any tastings done on aged wines with screwcap enclosures. Or are screwcaps still too new ?

I've tasted through a few vintages of Mount Langi Ghiran Riesling (and a few other wines from New Zealand) that were all sealed under screwcap. The older wines showed clear signs of aging with the developed flavours that I would have expected in an Aussie Riesling with a few years of age, the younger ones tasted as they should. I've also followed a few bottles of some New Zealand whites that were sealed under Stelvin over a few years, and watched them start to develop and evolve. After that (and the evidence shown by the trials done by Penfolds and other Aussies), I'm fully convinced that screwcaps are a far superior closure. For what it's worth, of the wines I mentioned - none were TCAed or even remotely close to oxidised. Unromantic closures rock.

Refusing to change is refusing to admit the problem. every time this debate comes up it's "why haven't they done a trial with wine XYZ?" I am so sick of it.

You may be sick of it, David, but your nausea does not seem to carry any weight with the producers of over 90% of age-worthy wines and with a similar proportion of those wines' consumers. This may be wrong, but the only way to change that state of affairs is credible and well publicised trials. Without these 99% of the wines which I want to buy over here will continue to be unavailable under screwcap.

The 1% may include some Nigl which I will be tasting in a few days time.

[David M. Bueker]

Change is coming slowly. I have almost never seen change come any other way.

Screw caps and/or vino-lok are now in use with high quality producers in the Loire, Germany, Austria, Burgundy, California & of course Australia and New Zealand. The wave is coming.

The wave is coming.

David, Hi....

Some "waves" turn into tsunamis and can be rather catastrophic. Do keep in mind that experiments carried on with screwcaps 15-20 years ago used screwcaps that are no longer manufactured today so we still have a long ways to go until we learn what the long-term impact of such closures will have on wines meant for anything more than medium-term (5+ years) of cellaring.

Nor do we have any conclusive evidence that screwcaps or other closures will give us wines with fewer closure-caused faults. Less TCA for sure, but let us remember that screwcaps may lead to faults well beyond TCA.

And no, I am not a Luddite! Just a healthy skeptic.

Best
Rogov

Screw caps and/or vino-lok are now in use with high quality producers in the Loire, Germany, Austria, Burgundy, California & of course Australia and New Zealand. The wave is coming.

AFAIK, to take the French regions you mention, there are only Baumard, Laroche and Boisset bottling under screwcap. These are commercially savvy producers when it comes to marketing in Anglo-sphere, but only the first is a quality standard bearer in his region and I would be surprised to find bottles from any of the three under screwcap in France or Belgium. From Bordeaux, one of the Lurtons, André I think, uses screwcap on his lesser wines for some export markets.

Italy is even more resistant to screwcaps; Switzerland, after being something of an European pioneer, is turning against them. I don't know about the German and Spanish markets but I believe that the Austrian domestic market has taken to them.

Without satisfactory results from credible trials, I don't expect to see any step change.