Parker looks to 2015

Most of these prognostications are already in place and working quite well. Not sure about the oak, but AFW is definitely THE ONE!

Hunt

I guess that I'll have to make my Holiday wreaths out of stelvin closures!

Hunt

I for one don't think that the Cork will ever come close to dissapearing. If 95% of all bottles will have Screw caps I bet the first growth wines of France, Napa, Spain, Italy will all remain with Real Cork!!!

Any one want to have a friendly wager on that one?

I believe that it was about 5 years ago that one of the most expensive Cabs from Napa ( Plumpjack ) appeared on the market with a screw cap. For $110 bucks you too could own a screw cap wine.

True...but you don't find them on Chateau Montelena, Phelps Insignia, Caymus Special Select, Heitz Marthas Vineyard.....

I don't think you will find them on Chateau Margaux, Haut Brion, Lafite Rothchild, Mouton Rothchild...

Do ya really think you will?

At least my hopes are that those wineries offering en-primeur or mailing-list sales will make the offer of choice - that would make everybody happe and offend nobody.

Oh, yes: I'd even be prepared to pay a small premium for screwcaps on my clarets.

M. (Completely disappointed by a magnum 1961 Gruaud-Larose a fortnight ago - a wedding gift back in 1992 [and, of course, the only one bottle] - with TCA spoilage.)

I think that will happen on the less expensive wines, white wines, but the top houses will alway provide with cork as its the romance and tradition and maintain old word charm.

Not to mention that there might be improvments that reduce or eliminate TCA that would allow them to continue with cork.

Corks will not go away unless they literally become ext>

So I won't buy them anymore, it's as simple as this.

"romance and tradition and ... old word charm" is just plain BS when I open a 43 year old supposedly superbe claret from an outstandig years- and it corks.

I, for me, will not support this anymore.

M.

Plus how are you going to make a living opening wine at table...looks funny for a sommolier to open a bottle of wine like a screw off coke cap.

Like many said in other industries that for example that the internet would put brick and morter conventional retailers out of business---that did not happen.

Many thought with the inventions of the VCR that places that rent movies would put Movie Theaters out of business since the VCR rental was $3.00 and it cost a family of 4 $20.00 to go to a movie without popcorn/coke that theaters would close. Just the opposite happened. With the increase in venues it made it more possible to economic profit to be increase. Thus there was an increase in Movies made, theaters here in USA are now averaging

16 per theater, and the after market rentals and not DVDs make tons of money.

These two examples show that at much as people think industries will change they don't. I do think that enhancing wine quality might one day be demonstrated by screw caps but that does not mean that corks will go away. Also there is no evidence I have seen that says a real fine wine will age as well with a screw cap as it does with a cork. Also...how much TCA really occurs from the cork vs. production and storage as what occured at BV.

Sorry...I would hold to cork still on long term wines. As far as the daily drinking it is fine either way.

Sorry.

Corrected spelling and wording sorry for post below---sent early by accident.

Plus how are you going to make a living opening wine at table...looks funny for a sommolier to open a bottle of wine like a screw off coke cap.

Like many said in other industries for example that the internet would put brick and morter conventional retailers out of business---that did not happen.

Many thought with the inventions of the VCR that places that rent movies would put Movie Theaters out of business since the VCR rental was $3.00 and it cost a family of 4 $20.00 to go to a movie without popcorn/coke that theaters would close. Just the opposite happened. With the increase in venues it made it more possible to produce economic profit to be increased. Thus there was an increase in Movies made, theaters here in USA are now averaging 16 per theater, and the after market rentals and now DVDs make tons of money.

These two examples show that at much as people think industries will change they don't. I do think that enhancing wine quality might one day be demonstrated by screw caps but that does not mean that corks will go away. Also there is no evidence I have seen that says a real fine red wine will age as well with a screw cap as it does with a cork. Also...how much TCA really occurs from the cork vs. production and storage as what occured at BV.

Sorry...I would hold to cork still on long term wines. As far as the daily drinking it is fine either way.

Sorry.

I don't give a damn of what it looks like. I pay for the wine, not for the ceremony. This holds true even more when the old bottle comes out of my cellar after 10, 20 or 40 years of cellaring, when it's cork tainted, spoils the evening, and, furthermore, won't be replaced by anyone.

I have spoken to *many* sommeliers in high-end restaurants here in AUstria - and they all would rather have screwcaps now.

Terry Thiese talked to a restaurant owner here in Austria (Klaus Wagner from Landhaus Bacher in Mautern, Wachau) who is known to be furiously opposite to screwcaps: "That's like serving the elaborated cuisine of my wife on paper party trays!". "Point taken", Thiese replied, "but what if your fine china spoiled 15 percent of all dishes?"

Screwcaps today have a proven track record of 30+ years - that's really enough for me to take my decision as a responsible consumer. I hate to be patronized by producers who tell me "It has been good for 200 years, so it is good for you!"

Don't misunderstand me: I don't advocate for screwcaps on every bottle - let the corks dorks have fun with current spoilage rates

-, but le *me* have the choice of closure when I pre-order and pre-pay the wine.

I don't know why this position - that in no way infringes the rights and the position of cork adepts - is so difficult to grasp.

M.

And one of Parker's other predictions was that the French will lose market share because of inability to change.

The point has been made over and over that the cork producers have not invested in technology to try to fix the TCA problem. A year ago I would have said that the percentage of corked wines was between 7 and 8%, but now 15% seems to be the figure that everyone is using. How can the cork industry not respond.

With regards to the China spoiling food that would be like throwing out the china over a few bad meals.

I do think if you preorder wine on futures and you want a different closure before bottling you should be able to have your choice. Any manufacturing should be able to do that NOW.

However what are you going to do when you still have TCA in wines with Stelvins if not all the issues are Cork related?

I am a traditionalist. I do not have total confidence that TCA only comes from Cork. Not after the BV issue here in NAPA.

Sorry again.

200 years of history is a good start. Stelvins on Gallo of Sonoma is not a problem for me however. Also not on futures if we wish them different. And I don't think that by 2015 95% of all wines will be screw caps.

They are losing market share now and it has little to do with screw caps.

Perhaps mak>

"Richard Neidich" skrev i melding news:TM_0d.24107$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...

You didn't get it. The wine was not bad, for a start, it became bad from the cork... Had there been some mysterious flaw in some of your china plastes making delicious food go bad I'm sure you would at least throw away the affected plates.

Fortunately, I seem to be quite TCA insensitive so this is not as pressing a problem for me as it seems to be for Michael and quite a few others. You are perhaps not very sensitive to TCA, are you? Anders

Salut/Hi Richard Neidich,

le/on Sun, 12 Sep 2004 16:26:27 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Well, Dick. If I were a chef, making really fine food, and I knew that of the 100 people eating it every day in my restaurant, about 10 would find it inedible purely because of the china, I'd have thrown away the entire service without a moment's thought. And if it turned out that the only crockery capable of guaranteeing that me food would taste right was cheap and cheerful pyrex (glass), then I'd buy it without a moment's hesitation.

VERY rare, Dick. And in fact, it would actually point up those wineries with severe problems in their cellar, so would act as a spur to them to improve their methods. At the moment, cork related TCA which is so much more common, masks the cellar related problems.

One case in how many?

I do. If only because 95% of all wines are going to be drunk within a few days of being bought. I forget the figures, but in some countries, a HUGE proportion of wines bought will be consumed in under 24 hours.

What you, and all the people who fight FOR corks seem not to want to accept, is that Stelvin (I'm NOT arguing in favour of plastic "corks") and crown caps have been around for ages, and have proved themselves reliable. It may be that it's only in the last couple of years that there has been a lot of talk about them, but that has little to do with the long term testing that has been carried out.

I just reposted the story about BV about a month ago. We are all aware that TCA can get into wine from other places. If you can absolutely positively get rid of 15% of the TCA contamination in wine by doing away with corks, why are you against it.