Thursday, 17 July 2008

• (Don't) Put A Cork In It!

  I find it amusing that everyone seems to have an opinion about cork and wine.  Some people seem apprehensive about buying wines that have screwcap closures instead of the traditional cork.  There is still an association between screwcaps and cheap wine.  This may have been true once upon a time, but today it couldn't be further from the truth. 

  Case in point: New Zealand.  The wine industry in New Zealand has a strong preference for screwcap closures for its wines, and so you'd be hard pressed to find cork closures in a Kiwi wine.  Kim Crawford anyone?  How about Cloudy Bay?  All screwcap enclosures on premium and super-premium wines.

  Other wineries around the world are following suit.  In Ontario, Flat Rock Cellars uses only screwcap closures on all its wines.  Others choose to mix it up, using screwcaps for the wines that are not meant to be aged long term.  Fielding Estate, for example, uses screwcaps on a number of their white wines and corks in the bottles of their premium reds. 

  But why the move away from cork?  The simple answer: cork taint.

  Without getting into the science and boring details, here is the gist of the story.  Cork comes from the bark of a tree.  Being an organic material, it needs to be treated before it can be used to seal bottles.  However, sometimes the cork contains a compound called TCA.  When that cork comes in contact with the wine, the TCA can spoil the wine.  A "corked" wine smells like a musty basement, moldy newspaper, or a wet dog.  Unpleasant at best, and definitely not the sort of stuff you want to drink with dinner.  It also occurs more often than people realize.

  Screwcaps eliminate the possibility of cork taint by removing cork from the picture altogether.  However, there is still resistance to using screwcaps or other alternative wine enclosures because of the ritual and romance that goes into opening a bottle of wine.  I admit, having the waiter or sommelier open a bottle wine that's sealed with a cork is a lot more impressive than having them turn the screwtop.  However, I'm quickly learning to get over that.  Every time I encounter a corked wine, I become that much more in favour of alternative closures.

  So my advice for people who think screwcaps signal inferior wine?  Get over it. 

  • 11:40 AM
  • 57 Views
  • 2 eProps
  • 1 Comment