Unscrew a bottle of your favorite wine tonight
"Pop!" What a great sound. What fun it is to use a well designed corkscrew to open a bottle of wine. I won't go into the torture of a bad cork screw, but I can't help but point out the torture of a bad cork. The nasty, moldy, wet cardboard aroma and in severe cases, flavor, of a corked bottle of wine is a heartbreaker. So common is this fault, that most experts, myself included, suggest you always have a back up bottle of wine for any special occasion.
There was a time when bad corks account for an even greater number of bad bottles of wine, but it has gotten much better in the last 10 years or so. Better, but not good. All sorts of alternative corks have been created to help alleviate the curse of corked wine. Composites, plastics and and any number of systems for catching the bad corks before they are used in a bottle have all helped, and indeed, cork alternatives have little to no chance of tainting wine. The obvious question is whether or not these cork alternatives are as good as natural cork, and if the systems for catching bad corks are cost effective, or even work to catch the problem corks. The answer is yes and no.
Natural cork, along with cheaper glass bottles were an important development in the 18th century. Prior to this wine was only stored in bottles for a short time, often with a wax or pitched sealed piece of burlap. The cork expanded in the mouth of the bottle, making a perfect "hermetic" seal. This allowed wine to age in a bottle, away from air, and to develop "bouquet" or those aromas that come from bottle aging (technically I call these the tertiary, anaerobic aromas). Wine was now able to not only improve better with time, but it was now easier to sell and distribute small amounts (as opposed to an entire barrel at a time).
Cork was great, and better than anything else that anyone could come up with, but it was not perfect. Besides the pesky off odors it could cause when tainted, it also dried out. This made it important that wine be stored on its side, and even with the most dutiful of storage, corks loose their flexibility, and hence their ability to make a good seal, when they are more than about 20 years old.
Screw tops have been around for a long time, but modern technology has improved them to the point where they are now an alternative to corks. Early screw top enclosures were far from perfect, and as such were relegated to 'Jug Wines" those lowest class bulk wines. As technology improved the closures, new interest was generated, and new studies were conducted. One of the most recent of these tested wines in blind tastings that had been aged for periods of time from a few years to over 5 years. Various enclosures were part of the test, and much to the surprise of the industry, screw tops did unbelievably well. Wines that were designed to be enjoyed young (meaning they were balanced more towards the fruit than the acidity or tannin) not only did well with the screw tops, they actually did better with the screw top than with any of the other enclosures.
This epiphany in the industry has lead to a number of wines being released recently, with screw tops. It takes nerve for these companies to buck the public perception of screw caps (a perception that ironically the fine wine industry spent years cultivating). A trip to your favorite wine store will yield several wine selections, with prices that range from below $10 to over $20, that sport the new twist off enclosures.
What about long term aging? The tests continue, and time will tell, but expect to see high quality, very long corks, to continue to be the closure of choice for the high end wines destined to age for decades. As a side note, remember that factoid above where the corks dry out after 20 years? This is a major problem for collectors of wine at auction and other rare outlets. A careful expert can recork a bottle of wine, refilling the space that evaporation has created (ullage) with wine from the same vintage, and the same producer. This expert should then document on the bottle the procedure and date of the recorking and certify that it was done in the proper way. Alas, too many so called experts have helped to create an environment where recorking is distrusted, by not only failing to document their procedures, but by cheating and filling the old bottles with younger wine. If you are a collector of old wines, look for honestly recorked wines, they will always be more sound than wines with original corks, but as always, beware the cheats.
Screw tops are here to stay, along with composite and synthetic corks. The twist off tops have an amazing advantage in that they not only keep young fruity wines better than other methods, but you don't have to worry about forgetting the cork screw on a picnic. So be brave. march into your favorite wine store and demand their best bottle of Screw Topped wine, and when you untwist the top, just for fun, you can always add the popping sound yourself.
There was a time when bad corks account for an even greater number of bad bottles of wine, but it has gotten much better in the last 10 years or so. Better, but not good. All sorts of alternative corks have been created to help alleviate the curse of corked wine. Composites, plastics and and any number of systems for catching the bad corks before they are used in a bottle have all helped, and indeed, cork alternatives have little to no chance of tainting wine. The obvious question is whether or not these cork alternatives are as good as natural cork, and if the systems for catching bad corks are cost effective, or even work to catch the problem corks. The answer is yes and no.
Natural cork, along with cheaper glass bottles were an important development in the 18th century. Prior to this wine was only stored in bottles for a short time, often with a wax or pitched sealed piece of burlap. The cork expanded in the mouth of the bottle, making a perfect "hermetic" seal. This allowed wine to age in a bottle, away from air, and to develop "bouquet" or those aromas that come from bottle aging (technically I call these the tertiary, anaerobic aromas). Wine was now able to not only improve better with time, but it was now easier to sell and distribute small amounts (as opposed to an entire barrel at a time).
Cork was great, and better than anything else that anyone could come up with, but it was not perfect. Besides the pesky off odors it could cause when tainted, it also dried out. This made it important that wine be stored on its side, and even with the most dutiful of storage, corks loose their flexibility, and hence their ability to make a good seal, when they are more than about 20 years old.
Screw tops have been around for a long time, but modern technology has improved them to the point where they are now an alternative to corks. Early screw top enclosures were far from perfect, and as such were relegated to 'Jug Wines" those lowest class bulk wines. As technology improved the closures, new interest was generated, and new studies were conducted. One of the most recent of these tested wines in blind tastings that had been aged for periods of time from a few years to over 5 years. Various enclosures were part of the test, and much to the surprise of the industry, screw tops did unbelievably well. Wines that were designed to be enjoyed young (meaning they were balanced more towards the fruit than the acidity or tannin) not only did well with the screw tops, they actually did better with the screw top than with any of the other enclosures.
This epiphany in the industry has lead to a number of wines being released recently, with screw tops. It takes nerve for these companies to buck the public perception of screw caps (a perception that ironically the fine wine industry spent years cultivating). A trip to your favorite wine store will yield several wine selections, with prices that range from below $10 to over $20, that sport the new twist off enclosures.
What about long term aging? The tests continue, and time will tell, but expect to see high quality, very long corks, to continue to be the closure of choice for the high end wines destined to age for decades. As a side note, remember that factoid above where the corks dry out after 20 years? This is a major problem for collectors of wine at auction and other rare outlets. A careful expert can recork a bottle of wine, refilling the space that evaporation has created (ullage) with wine from the same vintage, and the same producer. This expert should then document on the bottle the procedure and date of the recorking and certify that it was done in the proper way. Alas, too many so called experts have helped to create an environment where recorking is distrusted, by not only failing to document their procedures, but by cheating and filling the old bottles with younger wine. If you are a collector of old wines, look for honestly recorked wines, they will always be more sound than wines with original corks, but as always, beware the cheats.
Screw tops are here to stay, along with composite and synthetic corks. The twist off tops have an amazing advantage in that they not only keep young fruity wines better than other methods, but you don't have to worry about forgetting the cork screw on a picnic. So be brave. march into your favorite wine store and demand their best bottle of Screw Topped wine, and when you untwist the top, just for fun, you can always add the popping sound yourself.
posted by Wineguy at 1:37 PM
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