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.

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.

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.

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.