Natural or synthetic closure ?

Laurent Ponsot from Domaine Ponsot in Morey Saint-Denis chooses synthetic over cork :

From a 1911 CORTON,

See, shoulda used a screw cap!

incredible! I’m sure they’ve done plenty of research before going all-in with these. I hope they’re right about the closure and that more producers follow suit.

hope it works better than the temperature dot.
alan

I`ll tell you in 20 years.

I take it you have seen the temperature dot not work?

I was kind of thinking that as well, since I did buy some Ponsot 2010s. Time being the only foolproof test, I wonder how many years they’ve spent doing test runs with this closure.

I put an empty Ponsot bottle in a
heated oven for an hour. Dot did not change color.
alan

Are you sure the dot wasn’t faulty ?

To get back to the main topic, up until now I wasn’t really buying into the whole synthetic cork stuff… Only the Diam closure had my interest.

I have seen a lot of synthetic corks leak and that didn’t give me any confidence in it (mostly out from cheap ass bottles my friends brought). However, Ponsot’s corks seem quite reliable. I might put some trust in those corks if everything goes well in the future (still better than any screw-cap in my opinion).

By the way, what’s the environmental impact of synthetic corks ? Is it better than any natural or recycled cork ?

Text on the Domaine Ponsot bottle label;

If the dot printed in yellow in the middle of the text changes to orange, it means that this bottle has been exposed to a too high temperature.

BTW, did not change after heating in orange!

The world’s most high profile wine experiment?

Synthetic cork called AS-Elite by Ardea Seal used since 2008 by Laurent Ponsot from Domaine Ponsot in Morey Saint-Denis.

More , Closures: Part 4 – Synthetic solution for grand cru Burgundy - The Drinks Business

Cheers, Barry

No, I don´t hope so!

Here in Austria we have quite a lot of experience with synthetic corks; many winemakers abandoned from using it - and switched to screw-caps or glass - because often the synthetics loose elasticity after 1.5 to 2+ years, get untight and the wine is oxidized in short term. There might be better material now, but the risk is: when a synthetic closure gets untight it´s completely untight very quickly - differently to a natural cork.

Screw caps (aluminium) work fine generally, but my major concern is that I have no idea how the wine will age.
When I have a Bordeaux or Burgundy from a given vintage I have a fair good idea when it might be close to maturity etc. …
but with screw caps I simply don´t know. The worst that could happen is that it will not age at all - meaning: after 10+ years it tastes still very youthful (which isn´t the reason for aging a wine in the cellar).

No problem with screw caps for wines meant to be drunk young.

No, I will not buy any Ponsot with these closures (except maybe one bottle for experiment …)

If one buys a case with cork closures the statistic odds are that one bottle might be corked; if you are lucky: none - if you have bad luck: two out of 12.
If a case with synthetic corkes prooves to get untight all 12 will be over the hill very quickly.

The use of Stelvins and other synthetic closures raises a ton of questions. The Australian Wine Research Institute did a really detailed 14,000 bottle study over a ten year period using various closures. Their conclusion was that Stelvins were generally the best at preserving freshness, but lead on occasion to significant reductive notes. Synthetics performed very poorly for the most part, and some were the worst of the study. The corks performed fine, with some very high quality corks performing very well, with only a moderate failure rate for oxidation. Obviously, TCA is the major issue there, along with expansion and shrinking due to environmental changes.

The AWRI report suggested that certain diams were probably the best bet for maintaining freshness over a long period of time, with the lowest rate of spoilage, oxidation, and TCA contamination. That does raise the issue referred to by Gerhard above: Why are we aging wines? We age wines to develop secondary and tertiary notes, to resolve tannins, to integrate components. A 20 year old bordeaux is often referred to as “still to young” or “in need of more time.” Will a Stelvin or diam-like synthetic cork result in a significantly slower aging process? The answer is yes. Other recent AWRI studies show that aging is largely a result of oxidation and SO2 interaction. More oxygen = faster aging/more decay. If a synthetic cork or Stelvin is used in the same bordeaux, will it still need more time 40 years down the road? If so, is that necessarily a bad thing? Many aged bordeaux are a crap-shoot simply because you don’t know if the wine will be fresh. A Stelvin would seem to be a better bet for freshness, but may result in significantly slower evolution.

I think when push comes to shove, deciding on a closure is a tough call. I understand that there are various grades of synthetic corks that are made to allow or restrict the flow of oxygen over time. Perhaps those are good bets. Frankly, the type of closure has very little impact on whether I’ll buy a wine or not. I’ve had too many bottles with cork closures turn out poorly, especially with a lot of age, to think that cork is the end-all-be-all. I also think that if you don’t like change, you’ll like obscurity even less. As technology advances, there’s no reason not to use something better, if it is better. Hopefully, these new synthetics are more than just a hope and a dream.

As technology advances, there’s no reason not to use something better, if it is better.

Amen.

Things like refrigeration, cold-stabilization, and so on.

I’m surprised that he selected that particular closure however. The problem with most of those, and I’m not familiar with the one he has, is that they’re not as compressible as cork, so they’re pretty much the diameter of the bottle neck and they stay that way, rather than expanding to seal perfectly.

Nor do I think they’re likely to prevent a wine from aging. It’s not only oxygen that causes what we call “aging” and even if it were, it would be simple enough to bottle with sufficient oxygen to do so. The problem today is that it’s completely random - nobody knows exactly how much, if any, oxygen is optimal for any given wine, and with cork, you’re never sure how much will be made available. There are too many variables. I give Ponsot a lot of credit as he’s going to irritate all of the arch-reactionaries. I may even buy some of his wine!

K John,

Thanks for the information . . . but I’m curious where you got this info from. From what I remember, the AWRI Closure study included screw caps, various synthetics, and different grades of cork, but I was not aware that included DIAMs as well. In fact, not sure if the DIAM had been put into production when the AWRI study that I’m thinking of (wanna say late 90’s/early 2000’s) was begun. Of course, there could have been a newer one that I’m not as up to speed on and would love a link to it if you have it.

As far as ‘aging’ goes, there is no doubt that wines still continue to age under all types of closures - even completely air tight ones! Chemical reactions have been shown to continue even in the abscence of oxygen . . .

The big rap against synthetics has been multi-fold - hyperoxidation; leaking of chemicals into the wine; not being able to get the closure out easily, or back in . . . but a lot has changed with how these are manufactured these days. From what I’ve seen, they’ve become much more consistent in their oxidative properties, and wines should be fine stored in them - but the question is for how long. Ah, the age old question . . .

With regards to screw caps, more and more anecdotal data continues to come out about wines ‘aging’ under these closures, and aging nicely. Wines will age ‘differently’ under screw caps than corks, and even differently between the different types of liners used in the screw caps themselves (sara-tin or sara-nex). And now there is a company that ‘individualizes’ screw cap liners depending upon the type of wine to better ‘match’ the desired ageability.

Just another few datapoints - and a question or two . . .

Cheers!

You’d think I had one to many for breakfast. I was horrified to read your post, and quickly realized I wrote DIAM instead of Stelvin. Edited post above to reflect actual studies.

My thanks to those willing to be guinea pigs to the tune of $500 a bottle and 20 years of cellar space… we wish you the best.

And now there is a company that ‘individualizes’ screw cap liners depending upon the type of wine to better ‘match’ the desired ageability.

Which actually makes a great deal of sense. We manufacture things to precise permeability specifications for replacement lenses that will fit on your eyeball, but we refuse to use the same science to replace a 17th century wine closure.

I am well aware of the problems with most synthetic closures. Some have been tested at well beyond 2 years and have supposedly performed consistently well. The problems with most synthetics are why I said I hope that they are right before saying I hope more producers follow. Saying all synthetics are crap because some of them are is not logical. I can understand questioning these ones, but not proclaiming that they won’t last because other, VERY different synthetics don’t.