Screwcaps-vs corks

I haven't read the article yet. Often the articles in Epicure in the Age are a bit short on detail I think.

Anyway, its a bit of an old chestnut isn't it?

I was reading somewhere the other day that even the big prestige wines are going under screw-cap. And that [my concern] long term screw-cap still seems to win out over cork.

There was a school of thought that the interaction whilst in the bottle of cork and the wine produced flavours and effects that screw-cap cannot. But I think there's been like 20 year comparion tastings and there is no discernable difference.

Certainly for drink now or short term cellaring wines I think screw-cap is well well ahead.

At the moment the oldest thing I have is like 6 or 7 years old, so personally I'll take screw-cap anytime. Nothing worse than going out for dinner or buying something nice or even just being at a friends place and being caught short by cork taint.

With what, 90-95% of wines being "drink now" straight from the shop, I think eventually cork will be more of a speciality or novelty in the future.

Martin,

Thanks for a very interesting link.

Just a couple of observations -

Kumeu River has totally embraced screw caps, after struggling with TCA contamination for years, up to 15% of their wines were corked.

Interesting to see the results from Penfolds. I have heard via the grape vine that they have been in-house trialling for many years, even with their premium reds (Grange?). I had given up on Henscke - it seemed that every wine of their I purchased was corked - I have not seen Mt Edelston under screw-cap over here yet.

st.helier

I think the debate between cork and screwcap will go on for eternity, or at least until the next new invention... try the ZORK. Personally from experience and studies, i would more likely go for whites under screwcap, and reds under cork. Or at least reds made for ageing under cork.

I will say this for screwcaps; We had a representitive from STELVIN, give us a talk on the merits of screwcaps, and half of the speech was based on how Screwcaps were just as good for ageing as corks were (i.e: slow ingress of O2). He said that there was very little study to support corks over screwcaps etc... The next half of his talk contradicted this, saying that they had/ were? developing/ developed a screwcap that allowed different levels of permeability of O2 ingress. What i learnt from this experince, was that never listen to an company rep, or company produced studys in terms of how good a product is. They only ever put out what is in the best interest of their bottom dollar.

End of the day?

Choose what ever you think tastes better. (Placebo effect or whatever)

In reality though the type of closure barely registers with me, I choose a wine based on many other factors.

Is there any evidence from blind tastings of identical wines bottled with the different closures?

pk

Yes, in the oft-cited study being conducted by the Australian Wine Research Institute:

HTH Mark Lipton