an interesting article about screw closures

I didn't read this, as I didn't feel like subscribing. But "No screwtop can match the use, beauty and moral significance of a cork, writes Roger Scruton" ?!?!

Is he inferring that Stelvins are amoral or immoral?

Well, no cork can match the use, beauty, and moral signficance of 5% of my wine cellar going bad.

I don't quite understand. Your wine went bad because the bottles were stopped with cork?

5 percent sounds very high, even for aged wine. You may have been very unlucky.

Anyone else find such a loss rate?

5% sounds about right for me. Maybe even a little low. I'm thinking 4-5% TCA taint,plus with older bottles a couple percentage points for bad corks that allowed oxidation in older bottles. I bet Michael P would opine its higher.

Much higher, and getting worse every year.

"interested" skrev i melding news:4b5Ne.4971$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...

I've about 0 % but then I'm probably TCA insensitive... Others here have reported up to 18% and more Anders

"interested" wrote in news:4b5Ne.4971$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net:

I haven't kept records, but I have been experiencing a higher than previous exposure lately. And I am thinking that it is time to reinvestigate Petite Syrah, I hated it when I first had it, but lately I am suspecting that it was a corked bottle that I had so it is time to splash in the water a litle.

IF you buy cheap wines you get cheap corks :-)

] > Well, no cork can match the use, beauty, and moral signficance of 5% of my ] > wine cellar going bad. ] I don't quite understand. ] Your wine went bad because the bottles were stopped with cork? ] ] 5 percent sounds very high, even for aged wine. ] You may have been very unlucky. ] ] Anyone else find such a loss rate? ]

Seriously?

My loss rate is higher than that. Perhaps you're TCA insensitive, or you don't keep a cellar?

Haven't read the article, but "moral significance?" That's a bit rich...

-E

My loss rate is approaching 10% these days :( As to the "moral significance," that sounds suspiciously like the line the Portuguese cork producers were using about habitat loss in the oak forests if cork sales were to fall off...

Mark Lipton

"Richard Neidich" wrote in news:Em5Ne.6561 $ snipped-for-privacy@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net:

And yet, it is the more expensive wines that tend to be corked more often. My drink yesterday wines are rarely corked, the problem is in the $15-25 range where one expects just a little more but seems to get less, and of course the $35 bottles and up one remembers perhaps inordinately.

"IF you buy cheap wines you get cheap corks :-) "

Hmm, well in last couple years I recall corked bottles of Lynch-Bages (3 vintages), Lafleur, Leoville Las Cases, Cos, Lafarge Ducster, Giacosa Barbaresco, etc. Are you telling me that if I upgrade to Le Pin, Petrus, and Unico I'll be safe?

well...not exactly... :-(

I hope you had seen the emoticon in my posting earlier.

Bordeaux 1995, ~100 wines, in January: 30 to 40 percent.

Austrian Riesling 2004, ~50 wines, one week ago: 25 percent.

Austrian Chardonnay 2003/04, ~ 60 wines, one week ago: 30 percent.

:-(

M.

Whew, don't scare me like that. I opened my only '89 Leoville last Tuesday night and it was exceptional. (Paid $130 for it 3-1/2 years ago at the Washington Wine Society's library sale, so losing it would have made me very unhappy.)

Maybe I've been lucky, but I've lost very few bottles over the years. I can even tell you what they were. Two bottles of '99 Perrin Vacqueyras purchased at Costco, and about half the case of 2001 Condado de Haza purchased at Whole Foods. Looked to me like both were either stored improperly before I got them home, or they just did a bad job sealing them in the first place. Almost every cork of the Condado was sparged its entire length. Everything else has emerged unscathed (knock on oak!) in the last 13 years.

Incidentally, both stores made good on exchanges or credit.

JJ