The Great Wine Debate: Screw vs. Cork

Diam corks are guaranteed free from cork taint!

After 5 years use in New Zealand with no history of cork taint and all the attributes that go with wine under cork, eg less sulphide use and wines that mature faster.

The french are now building a new Diam cork manufacturing facility to remove the problem of taint from the equation in some wines.

The continuation of cork use will keep the vast natual ecology of the forests in Spain and Portugal from being destroyed and decimating the wildlife therein.

Screwtops are convenient and should only be used for wines not destined for keeping.

paul phillips @ Aug 23, 2008 02:03:36 AM

Half of what you read is bull and the other half is $hit

There is so much misinformation and rubbish peddled about both corks and screwcaps its not funny. Everyone has a personal opinion. Unfortunately most of it is just that; a personal opinion and has absolutely no foundation of fact.

I have carried out a load of research into this subject and its far more complex than most people think.

The (very) short answer is there is no such thing as a perfect seal. Some wines are better suited to cork and some are better under screwcap.

Check out this link. http://www.torbwine.com/pa/2007/closurequest.shtml

Ric Einstein @ Aug 19, 2008 19:48:45 PM

The future is now.

Every bottle of wine that retails for 15 bucks or less should be screw capped. Today's wine consumer buys wine at 4 pm to open at 7 pm. The easier you make it for the consumer to have a bottle of wine the greater wine sales will increase. So don't fight it. The only thing holding up this change is the investment by the winery's in the new equipment and bottles required for this change. I have over 40 years selling wine to retailers and have had conversations with many of you might say the early California wine leaders and their one common thing that bothers them is to make a good bottle of vino only to have a bad cork spoil it. I have taken back for credit $100 bottles of wine with bad corks. If you reduce the number of bottles that have corks maybe there will be fewer bad corks on the more expensive wines.

Screw caps, the sooner the better.

Jim L. of CA @ Aug 18, 2008 18:43:43 PM

I am in the aluminum screw cap business in Napa Valley. Not that I want to dispute one of the previous comments that some wineries are going back to cork for whatever reason, after they have tried screw caps. However, as the proverbial "new kids on the block" in this business, we have rapidly acquired new screw cap customers over the past couple of years in Napa Valley and beyond. The interest in aluminum screw caps is HUGE, and the list of wineries that have development agreements with us is long and keeps growing.

The aluminum screw cap is here to stay and we predict that it will enjoy significant growth in the years ahead and become the closure of choice for white wines, roses and many other wines intended to be consumed immediately or within a few years.

The cork industry understands this as well and is fighting us every step of the way with a never ending barrage of misinformation, intended to confuse wine makers and wine drinkers alike.

Ultimately, the wine drinking consumer will be the judge of which closure is best and will drive future wine packaging developments.

Ortwin Krueger of CA @ Aug 18, 2008 18:36:34 PM

Cork Taint

Several times a year I judge wine at competitions held in California. One year, we had an 8% rate of cork taint for 120+ Chardonnays. There will always be some risk of taint, though it's usually not this extreme.

David Vergari of CA @ Aug 18, 2008 17:35:09 PM

Corks vs. Screwcaps

"But there's something about screw tops that can make even a fine Chardonnay seem like a $5 bottle."

That 'something' would be your own pre-conception of wines in screw topped packaging. Why is it OK for expensive bottles of spirits to packaged in screwcaps (sometines even plastic ones!), but not wine?

It's all between your ears.

Paul Criger of MI @ Aug 18, 2008 16:23:43 PM

The problem with the whole all or nothing approach to closures is that most consumers still don't know what corked wine smells like. They confuse it with brett, oxidation, reduction or cooked wine. I work in a winery and when we get returned "corked" bottles, we send them to a lab for analysis. Guess what-99% of the time they aren't corked....it's just poorly educated consumers who read about corked wine and think anything that smells different must be due to TCA. I also know plenty of winemakers who have confided to me that they can't smell TCA or Brett anymore.

I've had plenty of screwcapped wines that I have to decant and wait for an hour or two to blow off the reductive notes-who wants to drink a wine that smells like a skunk? I buy whites that are screwcapped but never big reds-it's too risky

Janey of CA @ Aug 18, 2008 13:27:05 PM

Re cork vs screwcap

The attention that has been focussed on cork tainted wines and it's cause TCA, has spawned a great deal of research into the sources of TCA in wine. We now recognize that corks are not the only source of TCA, and that winemakers must be diligent in the prevention of any chlorine contact with wines. In parallel with this, cork suppliers have become paranoid in their quest to prevent cork taint from being transferred with their products and some have even gone to the heroics of building new premises to process and package corks to assure the absence of cork taint.

Among my clients, I still recommend the use of corks, because I feel that corks have an image advantage for high end wines and I find it easier for a winery to control cork taint than to control reductive defects that can redevelop under screw cap even though they had been treated prior to bottling.

Gary Strachan @ Aug 18, 2008 12:55:14 PM