Another closure study

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Hogue Cellars has just presented a study to the American Society of Enology and viticulture conference, held in San Diego last week. They concluded that Stelvin closures were the way to go. The surprise to me was not the 18% rate of tainted natural corks but that they found that the wine preserved with synthetic corks tended to oxidize after about two years. They also found that bottles with natural cork stoppers aged inconsistently depending on the seal of the cork.

Reply to
Bill
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This is no surprise - here in Austria nearly everybody knows that.

M.

Reply to
Michael Pronay

Thanks, Bill. Their conclusions (aside from the very high spoilage rate) seem in line with those of the ongoing Aussie study. Re the synthetic corks: I've seen this firsthand with a Siduri PN that was foolishly bottled under syncork. The reason is that *some* types of synthetic cork consume the sulfites used to preserve the wine. Someone here (Mark W or TomS perhaps?) mentioned not too long ago that newer types of synthetic cork didn't suffer from that drawback -- though they're still hell to pull out, I'd wager.

Mark Lipton

Reply to
Mark Lipton

Just a little aside, the Villa Maria Group, NZs second largest producer which incorporates the Villa Maria; Vidal and Esk Valley labels has made the decision to do away with cork altogether - even in their premium reds.

Mark, this means that even wines like the Villa Maria Reserve Pinot Noir and the Esk Valley Reserve Merlot and "The Terraces" will be bottled under Stelvin.

Many NZ wineries are using Stelvin to close their aromatic wines, but stick to cork for their chardonnays and their red wines.

But, with producers like Kumeu River also going 100% the Stelvin way, and more wineries gearing up to bottle thus, it won't be long before cork users are in the minority.

Reply to
st.helier

I heard it was for their Fruit Forward wines. About 70% of their production.

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5220

Andy

Reply to
JEP

Most interesting, milud, and I salute them for their forward-thinking policies. It makes the cork-finished Palliser 2003 SBs I just purchased all the more mystifying. Why not Stelvin for them? Their 2002s came in Stelvin, but to date all the 2003s were cork-finished!

Mark Lipton

Reply to
Mark Lipton

Like quite a few NZ exporters, they have bowed to "pressure" from some of their export clients and have bottled a small quantity under cork.

For the domestic market, Palliser is bottled solely under Stelvin; it would not surprise if, like the Villa Maria Group, they do away with cork altogether.

Reply to
st.helier

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