Corks and Screwcaps, Part I

Every now and then I feel like writing about wine-stuff. The subject is wine closures, more specifically, corks and screwcaps. Please read on…

A recent issue of Decanter magazine declared that the screwcap “is the best closure for the vast majority of wines, both red and white”, which seemed rather innocuous to this observer. However, others did not think so, judging by the following comments on the Decanter magazine web site. Here are a few examples.

“It is a crime that neither manufacturers nor proponents of the screw cap have had to demonstrate its safety before it is used widely…”

Plus…

“Screwcapped wine is an experiment being conducted on the wine drinking public at their expense.”

And finally…

“Is it democratic to force people into using a product [screwcaps] from petrol which contaminates our earth and generate war conflicts?”

Whoa! Down, big fella! I’ve been thinking about this topic for quite awhile, so I’ll weigh in with a few comments. In the interest of full disclosure, I currently use natural corks for Vergari wines. There’s probably an alternative closure in my future. It may be the screwcap, the Vino-loc, or possibly something we’ve yet to see.

The controversy would be moot if natural corks were inert. Unfortunately they are not. When they fail, or simply fall short of the mark, it gets ugly. I get seriously fromaged-off when I open a bottle of wine with cork taint, be it one of mine or someone else’s. Think of all the previous months, hell, years of work ruined by a lousy piece of wood! What’s really scary is a bottle that is marginally tainted. The TCA gets by people’s noses, but the wine is diminished all the same. When a consumer opens one of these bad boys, they are likely to conclude that the wine isn’t worth the price, or worse, they may tell some friends about how disappointing it was, and buy something else in the future. This is not fun to contemplate when you’re trying to make your way in a competitive market.

Several years ago, a representative from a cork company told me about their stringent QC program, yet in spite of this, I was told there remained the risk that 0.5% to 1.5% of their corks might fail. My comment: “It’s a damned good thing you guys aren’t making airplanes, for cripes sake!” Quality controls have improved over the years, but as a wine judge, I’ve seen the failure rate for corked wine as high as 8% in a flight.

Thus, I resort to extra measures working my cork supplier to minimize the probability of cork taint—note that I do not use the word eliminate. The company does not guarantee a fail-safe situation, but we go to great lengths to see it on a clear day. I visit their lab to conduct cork trials using representative samples from a number of bales under consideration. It’s time-consuming and I am very grateful to the techs in the lab for preparing hundreds of small jars, each containing a cork in a neutral white wine, for me to smell and taste. If there was an easier way, believe me, I’d pursue it.