Cork Vs. Screwcap: The Debate Rages On

Filed in archive Wine News on October 6, 2007

I'm a little torn on the screwcap vs. cork issue. On the one hand, the ease of opening and resealing a wine bottle that uses a screwcap closure is wonderful. On the other hand, a bit of the romance is lost when you don't hear that "pop" when you crack open a bottle. Plus, I'm a cork collector. I save the corks from nearly every bottle I drink. The corks from special occasions get set aside. The others go into a basket. (I have grand plans to make a cork board similar to this one someday.) Screwcaps don't exactly inspire nostalgia like wine corks do.

However, more and more wine producers are turning to the screwcap - and not just for lower-end wines. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that cork is fast losing ground:

The cork has nearly disappeared from Australia's domestically produced - and broadly exported - wines. In California, screw caps are no longer reserved for jug wines: The $155-a-bottle Plumpjack Reserve Cabernet is a twist-off. Even France, the country most reluctant to abandon a corky tradition, is flirting with alternatives. Earlier this year, Maison Jean-Claude Boisset became the first to do away with corks on a grand cru red burgundy, sealing half its $200-a-bottle 2005 Chambertin with screw caps.

Experts cite tricholoanisole (TCA, or the chemical that causes a wine to become "corked") as the primary reason producers are shifting to other methods of closure. However, screwcaps are not without their own problems. Corks allow very small amounts of oxygen into the wine. A screwcap can seal the bottle so tightly that no oxygen can get in, and that might cause a problem called "reduction." Whereas a bottle of "corked" wine has a distinct, moldly, off-putting smell, a bottle of wine sealed by a screwcap might eventually put off a smell of sulfur - equally unappealing in my book.

I doubt the question of which is the better closure will be answered anytime soon. But I suppose I should start perfecting my method of removing wine labels, just in case corks become a rare commodity.