First red Bordeaux under screwcap!

Forgot to give my short TN from last April when I tasted the wine at the Crus Bourgeois presentation at the Fayencerie in Bordeaux:

"Fine fruit, blueberry icecream, raspberries, good concebntration,

HTH,

M.

This is great news, Michael. Finally, we consumers can have some impact on the use of screwcaps there by responding enthusiastically to the sale of D'Agassac. If their sales triple as a result of this move, I suspect that many other chateaux will consider changing to screwcap, too.

Mark Lipton

Great news, indeed. I bought a Chablis today, J. Moreau & Fils Beau-Monde

Ian

Btw, Austria seems to be a very hot spot for alternative closures. Back in 1993, one white wine grower decided to go screwcaps for his top 2002s. In 2003 he bottled his entire production under screw-tops. He was joined the same year by two or three producers bottling parts of their 2003s under glas stoppers ("Vino-Lok").

But today, I counted motre than 40 growers using screwcaps and around 5 using glass stoppers for their 2004s. It's gonna be an avalanche!

M.

Isn't it? :-)

Just for the matter of records: Within two days, six acquaintances of mine have placed an order or are considering to do so. One Austrian importer - who has never bought Agassac - has placed an order, all with screw-caps.

The vermouth drop: Neither the chateau nor the retailer (Cave d'Ulysse) drop a single word about the choice on their homepages. Larger mail-ordering retailing companies (1855.com, Millesima, Chateau Classic, Farr Vintners) do not (yet?) even offer it.

Btw, if anyone is interested in Agassac's press release (and a picture of the bottles), just hit the reply button to mail me.

M.

Personally, I will always prefer the cork, for no other reason than it's esthetic appeal--although there are several other benefits cork provides for an ageing wine. I know, I'm sounding bourgois, and yes, there is a stigmatism attached to screw caps (memories of concord wine from southern ontario), but even on the practical side, it'll never fly with me. Wineries that experiment with screw caps are doing so for none other than cost effective production at the expense of what has become an icon of elegance. Corks are an institution, and dare I say it, part of the romance of wine. My close encounters with tainted corks after so many years is so minimal, I don't personally see the need. In spite of how good a glass of wine tastes after it's poured, there is something to be said for the ceremony of removing the cork in front of guests when opening a Latour in its prime. Twisting a screw cap of a Cheval Blanc? I don't see it. You can shrinkwrap the neck of the bottle all you want, nothing changes.

Next thing you know, they'll be selling Dom with beer caps.

Jeff

Sorry, but you're depicting significant ignorance. Apparently you have no idea about what's happening. Do you really think that these wineries/wines are using screw-caps for cost reason?

- PlumpJack (California, USD140/150, Stelvin since 1998)

- Felton Road (New Zealand, EUR34)

- The Black Chook (Australia, EUR17/20)

- Domaine JC Boisset (Chambolle Musigny, Gevrey Chambertin, and 1er Cru Grand Clos Rousseau)

If you say that you personally prefer corks for whatsoever reason, no problem at all. But don't diss other closures with arguments that do not hold.

My romance is what's in the glass, not the mouldy bark in the bottle.

Apparently God blessed you with a substantial insensitivity to TCA.

Others are less fortuned.

When having done our extensive Bordeaux 1995 tasting in January - some 100 wines - we had a *proven* cork taint rate of 30 percent (proven by a better showing back-up bottle), with another 10 percent of suspicious wines where either both bottles were tainted or there was no second bottle. And: No, it was not a provenance problem, 85 percent of the wines came directly from the chateaux six weeks before and were stored properly.

I do, and I would love to. Once again: The ceremony in itself has no value at all to me if the wine has a substancial chance to be tainted.

May I cite Michel Laroche, the Chablis négociant (from Revue du Vin de France, March 2005 issue):

| Last year I opened 40 bottles of a Chablis Grand Cru 2001. | I had almost 40 different wines: 3 excellent, 25 acceptable, | 9 slightly, 3 heavily corked.

This is not imagination!

No need to shrinkwrap anything.

Not beer caps, but stainless steel caps. I have no idea whether you know that Dom is closed with what you call "beer caps" for roughly a decade before disgorgement; wines like Dom Oenotheque or Krug vintage even significantly longer. Why put potentially noxious tree barks into the bottles when the crown cap does a perfect job?

When we last tasted champagne 16 months ago - also nearly 100 wines - we had a proven cork taint rate of 13 percent.

Sorry, but your arguments don't really count. Of course, they count for you - no problem with that, you will have cork stoppered bottles for quite a long time.

It's us who want the possibility of choice - no more, no less.

Give us the choice of buying top wines with a TCA and oxidation free closure, and we'd immediately be silent.

M.

Jeff says in part:"Personally, I will always prefer the cork, for no other reason than it's esthetic appeal--"

I respect your opinion and know that there are many others that agree with you.

I have cellared wines for a very long time, and have many quite old bottles. I find nothing at all appealng about a piece of oak tree bark in the neck of the bottle, or having an old bottle leak onto the floor. I have had a corked DRC wine - no wines are immune from cork taint. I find nothing at all appealing about spending many minutes extracting a very old crumbling cork or starting a charcoal grill to heat port tongs to break the neck off of the bottle. I only wish my 1978 and 1985 Romanee-Conti had been closed with a screw cap - they could afford to use a gold foil seal and a stainless steel cap for the perfect long term seal, considering the value of such wines. The very best wines to be stored for many decades may need a screw cap that is more robust that the cheap caps used for wines to be consumed in the short to medium term.

Actually bottles that have been fully sealed have been around a very long time. Many of my older bottles of vintage Madeira, and a few older vintage ports, have a very heavy seal of sealing wax over the cork and bottle neck. This seal allows no significant transfer of liquid or gas through the cork. Without this seal, many of these wines would have long ago leaked. The sealing wax is all that is holding the wine in some of these bottles.

So, I say, bring on the screw caps. If a guest wants ceremony, I will be glad to decant the wine into a Moser decanter from the 1800s. My parrot might miss the corks :-). He loves to chew them up into sawdust. I of course cut off the top part of the cork if it has been in contact with a lead capsule before presenting the cork to the parrot. If the parrot will not chew up the cork, you know you have a very foul tasting wine.

Reply to snipped-for-privacy@cwdjr.net .

A Kim Crawford 2004 Sauvignon Blanc that I had yesterday came with a screw cap. That is the first fine example that I have had the opportunity to try. It made a believer out of me. Remember, before corks, wine bottles were closed by stuffing in cloth rags, so I have read. Down with (some) tradition! Long live progress!

Godzilla

What about artificial (plastic) corks, then? Michael, do you have an opinion about it? It seems to me that they are the best compromise between taste and tradition. They could be made to taste the same as the screw-caps :), the manufacturers can use their traditional bottling equipment, and the users - their usual corkscrews and rituals. I'm curios, then, why would they offer Ch. d'Agassac with screwcaps, but not with artificial corks. Am I missing something?

Yes, you are missing something: Much higher oxigen permeability of synthic corks leads to rapidly sinking SO2 levels in the wines and thus fast and premature ageing.

Winegrowers here in Austria using synthtics see marked differences after 6 to 12 months in bottle. After 24 months the vast majority of the wines wines is completely oxidized.

From the Nomacorc homepage

| Nomacorcs provide a very consistent barrier to oxygen | transmission resulting in a predictable shelf life based on the | type of wine and initial SO2 levels.

You know what's at the end of a "predictable shelf life"?

Excatly: An expiry date.

M.

This means that natural corks are less permeable than synthetic ones. Amazing, I would have never expected anything of the kind. I'm guessing that is because the artificial cork must be made of low enough density to allow a normal corkscrew to pull it. Otherwise, a dense plastic cork would certainly stop any air, but would probably be impossible to remove. I had other questions, but your "A la Carte" article answers them all. A must read! Danke schön, Elko

Permeability of natural corked varies a lot. A factor of 100 or so between the bast and the worst IIRC. That's yet another problem with the dead tree stoppers.

Jamie Goode () just wrote an 6 page article in Harpers questioning the findings of this study.

If anbody is interested in the article, mail me (hit reply button), I can mail the PDF file.

M.

I'm not sure whether the permeability is through plastic itself - Oxigen transgression might run between plastic and glass.

M.

Thank you. Interersting article. Amazing that the study was based on

I am not sure I share Jamie's conclusions though. If the problem with screwcaps is that they do not let enough oxygen in, I am sure that the solution is to improve the technology of the seal to make it more permeable. The future may include a range of closures, but I don't see cork featuing in the line-up in, say, 30 years time.