Ageing potential of wines with a screw cap?

Hi,

A friend visiting from Australia gave me a bottle of wine yesterday: 2010 Cullen, Margaret River, cuvée Diana Madeline.

This is thus a 7 year old wine with a screw top.

I can get past the psychological barrier of no cork, and do not necessarily associate screw caps with el cheapo wines, but I do have one doubt about this kind of closure: the effects of ageing.

Do wines in screw cap bottles stay stable? Can they actually improve, or do they decline just like wines with cork closures? If so, is the rate comparable? I’m sure experiments have been done on this, but I wondered about your personal experience.

I’d have thought that reductive phenomena coae into play here, but maybe not… I also wonder if the wines are treated any differently prior to bottling compared to ones with cork closures.

I guess my question boils down to this: ten or fifteen years down the line, if you were to take the same wine aged in bottle with a cork stopper and compare it with one aged in a screw-cap bottle, would they be mostly the same?

Thanks in advance,
Alex R.

Cullen Diana Madelaine is regarded as one of Australia’s best Cab Sauvs and sells for around $90. In my experience wine under screw cap age similarly to wine under a perfect cork, of course not all corks are perfect.
Here is an interesting tasting that I referenced recently from Max Allen looking at Giaconda wines under screw cap. Cork or screwcap wine? Even age cannot settle this debate

I’ve had a small number of Australian Riesling under screwcap that were drinking superbly well after 30-35 years, with improvement and development exactly as one would hope for while still showing freshness. I’ll take white wine under screwcap any time wherever available - it may not be an identical ageing curve to cork, but I think they will hit peaks that are just as high.

I haven’t tried reds going back that far, I think the oldest I’ve had was a Hunter Valley Shiraz from 1998 last year and it too was developing well, though still a way away from its peak (but I would expect the same with good red Australian wine under cork as well). I’d like to try more aged reds under screw cap but I feel reasonably at ease with cellaring reds as well.

Reds age…whether they taste the same as under cork is a different discussion…

My belief right now is the cork is imparting flavor onto the wine over time…sort of like oak…it gives the wine a bit of mustiness which I think people associate with the evolution of a wine…and tends to be hidden more so in reds than whites…

Vs. Screwcap, the wines tend to taste fresher…the wine has aged but it tastes slightly different IMO…

Although as Cam mentioned, haven’t see 30+ year reds so no idea what they’ll be like…

I’m glad the Aussies are chiming in, as they have most likely had the longest experience of screw-caps. Unfortunately, I have no opinion either way, since I don’t have a whole lot of screw-cap closures with age…yet. Mostly they are on Australian semillon and Austrian whites.

Well, if I would only know … [scratch.gif]
That´s my greatest concern about sc: DO they age properly?

My experience so far is mostly with Austrian whites … and 10-12 years… under sc they stay much more fresh and primary … and are obviously aging (much) slower … so for simply “keeping” it´s an advantage … but for getting “properly aged” wines it´s a problem …
Another point: when the screwcap fails (can happen when the cap is slightly damaged) the wine is off very quickly, like an open bottle … but granted: it happens less often than TCA …)

Imagine a 2005 Bordeaux GCC or Burgundy GC under sc … the best are still very primary … under sc you might open one in 2035 … and it´s still a young wine … [head-bang.gif]

I would suggest a check of Bonny Doon’s library for American aging under screw top. For a relatively modest price you could try a current and 10-12 year old Cigare Volant. I’ve been buying Bonny Doon for 20 years and agree that they seem to be young longer. Primary and some interesting secondary, not sure if I have the time for tertiary.

I’ve found that wines tend to age more slowly under screwcap when compared to wines under cork. Like Gerhard said above they seem to stay much more fresh and primary. Granted I don’t have any side by side, cork vs stelvin evidence to reference to support this view. I will say that we’ve done more than one Australian riesling vertical out here in WA going back 10-12 vintages and that’s what I’m basing my opinions on. And whilst stelvin produces multiple liners with differing oxygen permeability characteristics I’ve yet to find a single Australian producer will admit to being offered these options. Every time I ask what Stelvin liner they chose for each wine they pretty much all respond along the lines of “the only one that was available”.

Alex - Bonny Doon is a great example - I’ve had them going back many years. And Australians.

Reduction is a problem if you sulfur like you’re using cork, but of course you need much less sulfur since you won’t have the oxygen exchange.

Any air exchange is due to faulty corks, not to intent. And it’s unpredictable. So screw cap gives you a LOT more control. And there’s no reason at all that a red can’t age brilliantly.

It seems consistently the case that the people who have actual experience of long aging bottles under screwcap are very positive about it, and all or most of the doubters have very little or no firsthand experience.

That tends to be the story.

I can certainly understand older people worrying about a wine not aging to their preferred state in their lifetime if the screwcap creates a longer aging curve. Every other metric would seem to favor caps over corks.

The reduction issue is getting much better. It seems wineries (excepting those new to screwcap) have learned how to handle it. I’m finding dramatically less reduction than in the past.

This . . .

Agreed. The days of systemic copper adds during the bottling process are long gone. That said, reduction issues can and still exist - with all closures :wink:

There have been long-term comparative studies in Australia that, as I recall, turned out very well for the screw caps. Jamie Goode has written about them. I’ve fished around on Google, but can’t find the studies quickly.

I think you have to be careful about older comparisons where reduction was an issue much has learned about alternative closures since then. For example, the Stelvin caps now come in a variety oxygen permeability levels: https://www.amcor.com/market_solutions/featured_industry_solutions/stelvin_screw_caps

I’ll see if I can find the study, but I had also read that modern Stelvin enclosures have similar oxygen exchange rates as a healthy cork, which would indicate to me that they would age just as well.

Rory - that means no oxygen exchange. People have some mistaken idea that a cork allows wine to breathe - corks come in different lengths and densities and some are under capsule while others aren’t. Nobody has any idea how much exchange is “good”, but if you want any air exchange, and you know how much you want, you can manufacture a closure to spec rather than introducing random variables via cork.

The problem with screw caps is a little different - some people say that they’re susceptible to damage by getting hit, slightly dented, etc. Still, those are relatively obvious, as opposed to whatever happened under the cork which you’ll never know until you taste the wine.

And really, how often does that happen, particularly with folks like us who are reasonably careful with our bottles?

Has any one of us ever had that happen with a bottle we owned?

It just blows my mind and aggravates me that the entire world is happy with modern technological advancement – PCs, tablets, smartphones, etc. – and phasing out old technology into deserved obsolescence – film, paper, CRT, etc – until it comes to goddamned cork and then suddenly everyone is a neolithic analog luddite. Cork is a garbage closure. In my young Berserkerdom, I have now had about 15 corked wines and not a single bad Vinoloked or screwcapped wine. Cork should be outlawed as a wine closure.

A bit of a flawed argument- not sure if this was intended tongue in cheek or not… I don’t eat/drink/taste PC’s, Tablets, Smartphones, Electric vehicles, etc.

I actually support screwtops, vinolok, etc. My biggest issue is that the demon you know is sometimes better than the demon you don’t- particularly when investing the amount of time and money involved in building a cellar. What happens if the liner material of screw-caps ends up degrading over time, or releasing some sort of noxious chemical e.g. BPA in plastic/tupperware/can liners- no one thought that was an issue a few years back…

What happens if sharks learn how to fire AK-47s?

I guess that would be bad, but I’m not exactly staying up at night worrying about it or staying away from the coast because of the chance.

:slight_smile: