The Screwcaps are coming! The Screwcaps are here!!

When you think about it, corks are strange. No one knows who originally thought of cutting the bark from the Quercus Suber tree into some kind of cylinder shape and then hammering the result into the neck of the bottle. Maybe it was the inventor of the corkscrew, an equally strange contraption! Corks are used to keep the wine in the bottle and the air outside the bottle. People have devised a number of other ways over the years to keep things in bottles, but corks are traditional for wine bottles.

There are, however, two problems with corks. First, a very small percentage of them leak (maybe 1 in every 100) allowing oxygen to come in contact with the wine. This spoils the wine by causing it to oxidize. Second, even without leaking, corks can affect the taste of the wine. They can cause the wine to be “corked.” (Not wines which have small pieces of cork floating in the glass when you pour them out. That’s just a badly pulled or a very old cork!). A corked wine is one where a chemical called TCA suppresses the fruit flavor and taints the wine. A corked wine smells musty and vegetal, and there is a similar taste. And a wine can be tainted to different degrees. It can be slightly tainted such that some people wouldn’t pick it up on the taste, or it can be so disgusting that anyone would reject it! Some estimates put the number of bottles affected by cork taint as high as 10%. That’s definitely an overstatement, but even a more realistic 2% is unacceptable.

There have been some developments in the realm of wine closures to eliminate the problem of corked wines. By now I’m sure you have seen the synthetic corks that are used in many moderately priced California and Australian wines. A few wineries have tried the crown cap, like the top on a beer bottle. But hold on to your Riedel glass. In the next 12 months you will begin to see a flood (well, perhaps a serious trickle) of higher quality wines sealed with a screw cap!

So far, several high profile wineries have begun producing wines with screw caps. The most famous is Plump Jack, a Napa Valley cult winery that bottles fully half of their Cabernet Reserve with screw caps. The experiment, to compare the aging of screw-capped versus cork-enclosed wine, will take many more years to complete.

Kim Crawford, the highly regarded New Zealand wine maker, will be releasing his 2001 wines with screw caps this fall. Oregon’s WillaKenzie recently announced that 15% of their production will be in screw cap bottles.

The charge toward screwcaps is being led by New Zealand. By 1999 the incidence of cork taint had became a serious concern to many members of the wine industry. Alternative closures had by that stage led to the evolution of the composite, plastic (synthetic) cork, and to the cork with a plastic seal. Various methods of sanitizing corks were also under close scrutiny.

In 2000 an informal meeting was held in Marlborough to discuss the problem, and from that grew an initiative to evaluate the various alternatives to the traditional cork closure. After some research the concept of the screwcap wine seal was raised for closer evaluation and technical overview. The screwcap wine seal was not an original concept. For over thirty years some wines had been sealed using a screwcap closure – for the most part low cost wines, which gave rise to a perception of the screwcap being a ‘cheap’ alternative, and this led to consumer resistance. Those in the know, however, had long recognized the superior quality of wines sealed in this manner, and ‘library wines’ bottled privately by many wineries for long-term storage used this type of closure.

Technical evidence in support of the screwcap closure was presented in an Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) Report, which published the results of trials carried out on a range of bottle closures. The publication of this result (http://www.awri.com.au) stimulated further debate regarding the performance of various wine closure types.

The New Zealand Screwcap Wine Seal Initiative
In May 2001 the ‘New Zealand Screwcap Wine Seal Initiative’ was born. The initiative now has 29 members, representing top wine producers from Auckland, Hawkes Bay, Martinborough, Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, and Central Otago. The group has enjoyed great support from the Clare Valley Wineries of Australia who shared their experiences following the introduction of their own premium Riesling wines sealed under screwcap.

The exciting culmination of all this work has been the release of a number of premium New Zealand wines for the 2001 vintage under screwcap. These wines will represent every wine producing region in the country, several wine varieties (including Pinot Noir and Merlot), and over twenty producers. The move to screwcaps is being led by some of New Zealand’s top winemakers. The sole motivation for the move is to improve quality, and this has been succinctly expressed by Michael Brajkovich MW of Kumeu River Wines. Michael was asked why he would even consider using the lowly screwcap for his wines, and his reply was, “Because it will make my wines better.”

The following New Zealand wineries are members of the New Zealand Screwcap Wine Seal Initiative. Not all are currently bottling with screwcaps, but many of them are.

* We carry wines from this winery. For further information on The N Z Screwcap Wine Seal Initiative, see their web site www.screwcap.co.nz. This site also has links to each of the winery members.
# We carry screw capped wines from this winery.

Screwcaps are Gaining more Acceptance
[Recent articles indicate a growing acceptance of alternative closures by both wineries and
 the public and progress in understanding the long-term effects of using the various closures.]

Screw Tops Gain Acceptance Worldwide - Frank J. Prial, New York Times, 4/21/04)
Two years ago, the announcement that a well-known winery (or a little-known winery for that matter) was switching to screw caps for its bottles was news. Winemakers were divided on the subject. “Right on,” said the younger vintners. “Waste of time,” said older and presumably wiser types. Or “Money down the drain.” Or more often, “The consumer will never accept it.”

No longer. Acceptance of screw-on tops for wine bottles - by both winemakers and consumers - has been astonishing. From Burgundy to Beaujolais, from Spain to South Africa, winemakers are switching from corks. No one knows how many wineries are using aluminum tops, but people in the industry agree that the number is in the hundreds.

Corked wine - wine that has been spoiled because of a bad cork - is a serious problem in the wine business. It affects even the fine old chateaux. Many years ago, I spent a weekend at Château Lafite-Rothschild, tasting very old wines from its cellar. Later, the staff acknowledged that it had had to open many more of the priceless bottles than we tasted, mostly because of faulty corks. James Laube reported in the Wine Spectator two years ago on a tasting of elite 1991 California cabernets in which nearly 15% of the wines were spoiled by bad corks.

Some of the problem is physical: as corks age, some dry out and crumble. Others were poor fits to begin with and allowed too much air into the bottle, oxidizing the wine. Contamination derives principally from trichloranisole (TCA), a substance formed by the action of chlorine on cork bark or wood. Traditionally, corks were bleached in a chlorine solution. Other substances have been used but, despite major efforts by the cork industry and regular announcements that the problem had been eliminated, it persists. Winemakers estimate that up to 5% of all bottled wine is contaminated by TCA. Cork producers say the figure is much lower.

The industry was hardly unfamiliar with screw tops. For years, jug wines and cheap fortified wines had been closed with them. Some years ago, when the E.&J. Gallo Winery switched from screw tops to corks for its famous Hearty Burgundy, it was an unmistakable sign that the wine had increased in stature.

Most objections to screw-top wine bottles involve restaurants which are especially concerned with image and prestige. This is certainly true of expensive wines. But restaurateurs who have used screw tops on moderate-price wines say they have encountered little objection from customers. And anyone who has used the bottles at home - or who has taken screw-top wines on a picnic - quickly sees how convenient they are.

A small Napa Valley winery called PlumpJack broke the ice, so to speak in 1997, offering a $135 cabernet with a screw top. Bonny Doon Vineyard in Santa Cruz followed, first putting screw tops on 80,000 cases of its moderate-price wines and later moving to bottle all of its wines, including its top of the line Cigare Volant, with screw tops.

Among the other California wineries that have switched wholly or in part to screw caps are Beringer Blass, Calera, Sonoma-Cutrer, Murphy-Goode, the Napa Wine Company, Whitehall Lane, Robert Pepi, R. H. Phillips, and E.&J. Gallo, which is now using metal caps for its huge Turning Leaf line. Fetzer Vineyards uses screw caps on wines it exports to Europe. In Oregon, WillaKenzie and the Argyle winery in Dundee are using screw caps.

Hogue Cellars in Washington is to switch to screw caps next year for its 450,000 case annual production. Hogue and R. H. Phillips are owned by Vincor International, a Canadian company. Vincor also owns Kim Crawford Wines in New Zealand, which has been using screw caps exclusively since 2001. In both New Zealand and Australia, it is estimated that 40 percent of all wineries - about 200 - use screw tops.

Specially treated corks and plastic corks have met with little enthusiasm in the wine industry. The best-known screw cap, with a long seal covering the bottle’s opening, is the Stelvin made by Pechiney Capsules of France. Pechiney has a factory in California. The Stelvin was first developed in the 1970s for Swiss wines which are said to be sensitive to TCA. Since then, the market for Stelvins expanded to include Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, and the U. S.

Customers in France include Michel Laroche, who bottles a premier cru Chablis under screw caps, Yvon Mau in Bordeaux, Domaine Blanck and Georges Lorentz in Alsace, and the Domaine de la Baume in the Languedoc. Fortant de France, one of the best-known Languedoc wines, is now bottled with screw caps. Even Bodegas Torres in Spain, a major cork-producing country, uses Stelvins on some of its white wines.

Tesco, the largest wine retailer in Britain, has more than 100 screw-capped wines in its stores and expects more. Georges Duboeuf, the largest of the Beaujolais producers, ships some of his wines to Tesco in screw tops. Switzerland, too, sells Duboeuf Beaujolais in screw tops, but Mr. Duboeuf said last week that he produces only about 30,000 cases with screw tops. While the market for his screw tops is increasing, he said, he is also using plastic corks which he said will probably be a more important replacement for cork than the metal caps.

Most producers have been hesitant to use screw caps on wines destined to age. Ironically, they are the wines that probably need them most because even corks not tainted with TCA dry out over time and fail to keep delicate old wines safe from air. But 98% of all wine is drunk within six months after its purchase. I am willing to predict that within a decade, 75% or more of these wines will be sold with metal caps.

Hogue Releases Study, Switches to Screw Caps by Daniel Sogg, Wine Spectator, 9/15/04
Hogue, one of the largest producers in Washington, has joined the tide of wineries switching to screw caps after completing an in-house study. The winery, which presented the study at an American Society of Enology and Viticulture conference, found limitations in both synthetic stoppers and natural cork. Its results agree with an Australian Wine Research Institute study.

Over 30 months, from 2001 to 2003, Hogue examined natural cork, two synthetic stoppers (Neocork and Supreme Corq), and two Stelvin screw caps with different liners. A panel of Hogue staff and industry professionals tasted the 1999 Hogue Genesis Merlot and the 2000 Hogue Fruit Forward Chardonnay at six-month intervals. They found that 1) bottles sealed with synthetic stoppers tended to oxidize after about two years; 2) white wines with natural corks had unacceptable levels of cork taint - contamination by TCA, a chemical that can make wines musty. With natural cork, the bottles also aged inconsistently, depending on the seal; and 3) The screw caps better kept the wines fresh and fruity, with the white wines benefiting the most.

As of the 2004 vintage, Hogue will switch from synthetic stoppers to screw caps on its Fruit Forward wines, which make up 70% of its 500,000-case annual production. The winery chose the Stelvin cap with a Saranex liner, which permits some air to reach a wine. The panel found that the closure allowed the wines to develop slowly, and also prevented off aromas caused by too much oxygen deprivation.

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