Agglomerated Corks

Bill, Is a claret bottle the same as a bordeaux ie. straight sided? I found these screw capp'ed claret bottles at Presque:

Don

Don - I have their catalog and the Claret or Bordeaux bottles are indeed straight sided. I try to use these bottles for all my wines since the stack easily on their sides.

Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas

No apologies necessary. Thanks for the info.

Thanks again. IMHO, these are exactly the types of tests we need. Care to do one on long term aging of red wines under screw caps?

Andy

Andy, Funny you mention that. A buddy of mine was at an auction and bought a pallet of clear 1 liter screw top bottles (probably liquor). He is bringing some over so I can see if I can find a screw cap that fits them. So the answer is maybe...

;O) Regards, Joe

I've done that already, to my satisfaction. Red wine ages just fine under screw caps. Mine was a 1984 vintage Cabernet that I tasted ~15 years later at the same time I tasted the same wine that had been cork finished. The difference was slight; perhaps even imaginary.

Tom S

Thanks for posting that Tom, it seemed to nicely cap a good thread.

Are you thinking of switching everything over to caps?

Don

I'd *love* to use Stelvin screwcaps for my commercial wines, but the winery only handles corks at the moment. I'll continue to lobby hard for a screwcap line, but I don't have $50K to pay for the mods. I'm also lobbying for a centrifuge, but I don't have the $$ for that either. It isn't _my_ winery anyway; I just rent space there.

Tom S

Thanks, Tom.

Could you give a little more info on the wine? Acid level. Tannin level when young. Impressions on how the wine aged.

The one area that I'm still not convinced that screw caps are better (I'm not saying they aren't better, only that the jury is still out) is wine that is made to be aged 15 years before it's even approachable. Granted, there is not a lot of this type of wine made, but IMHO it is worth the wait.

I fully support using screw caps for whites and young drinking reds.

Andy

Tom, und alles, qul ragoul,and everybody,

I am always interested in discussion about corks. Screw caps seem to be the up and coming answer but there may be a couple of drawbacks.

1. I presume that the wine must be stored standing on end as opposed to lying on their sides in a wine rack. I "presume" because I would expect that contact of the wine with the interior of the screw cap with its relatively thin sealing material would be detrimental to both the wine and the cap. Standing on end for storage takes up a lot more room than being racked in the normal way. I have very limited space and I rack 99 bottles in a space 90cms high by 75 wide by about 35 cms deep -- 9 bottles per level

1. I am also concerned on the quality of the seal between the lip of the bottle and the internal coating of the screw cap. I confess that I haven't looked at what material is used currently but it always used to be a thin layer of cork covered with a thin paperlike plastic disc. As a home wine maker I would also find it difficult to produce the same quality of seal that is created by what ever machine "caps" the screwtop bottles.

I have expressed my opinion on corks and corking previously -- especially for the small home winemaker -- currently I standardise on a particular type of traditional cork available in UK and my Portuguese floor corker. I insert corks dry directly from the package without any treatment whatsoever. I have now been doing this for 2 years and my inherent empirical taste opinions are that I am so much happier with the long term results.

Merry Christmas to everyone.

Season's greetings, Trevor -

The screwcapped bottles I've seen can be stored indefinitely in any position. I suspect that upside-down would not be advisable however, since that could cause a dent in the sealing surface that could breach the integrity of the seal. Lying down would be just fine though.

The Stelvin caps contain no cork. Between the cap and the neck of the bottle is a layer of compressible (closed cell foam?) plastic, a layer of metal foil (probably aluminum or tin) and a very thin layer of clear plastic. You could probably store nitric acid under them!

For most home winemakers, corks are probably going to remain popular indefinitely. I've had little problem with them myself, but the spectre of "cork taint" looms large over all commercial wineries. It wouldn't be such an issue if buying more expensive corks would eliminate the threat of TCA, but even 50¢ corks are thus afflicted. For my first commercial release I'm probably going to use synthetic corks - primarily for their lack of taint problems, but also for their considerably lower cost.

And to you as well!

Tom S

IIRC, the acid was ~7g/l. It was quite tannic in its youth (1984 vintage) - even after fining. During aging, the wine dropped out a lot of tannin and softened considerably. I still have some magnums of the cork-finished lot, and it's still good AFAIK. It's been a couple of years since I tasted it, but it had plenty of life then. I should open a magnum over the holidays come to think of it.

My reading indicates that even if wine is hermetically sealed in glass ampoules, it still ages. Screw capped wines do also.

Tom S

Thanks,

Andy