Need for wine foil?

I just opened a Bedrock Syrah tonight. To those who don’t know, Bedrock places no foil (or wax, yippee) on top of the bottle.

If Bedrock and other wineries can package their wine without the foil, why don’t more do it? Is there really any reason to keep sealing up a bottle with the foil?

There are some practical reasons foils were introduced.

I’ve been told that originally foils made of lead were used to keep rodents from eating through corks to get to the wine.

I’ll bet that the long, elaborate foils used on champagne bottles originated from a need to conceal uneven fill levels.

Peter Rosback

Sineann

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Not much need these days. It’s just a huge materials waste - a fraction of which is the delicate foil itself. There’s market expectation. But, you can see plenty of examples of great producers who factor the lack of a foil into the overall look of a bottle with quite elegant results. It’s a clean look. So, it’s a bunch of gutless lemmings clinging to what’s “supposed to be” done. Consumers who happen to get used to foil-less bottles can get rather annoyed at having to deal with the things.

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Thread not too long ago on this…

93%(223) did not care about the use of foil. Its telling.

There’s some good posts on the history of the why, and the why seems irrelevant these days.

10 years and running with no foils. After 2 vintages the questions stopped. No problems.

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Guess it is just because consumers are used to it, so most wineries don’t dare to change.

It seems like a huge waste of materials.

I had been curious about this and definitely seeing more and more bottles go without. Maybe it is trend that will slowly build over time.

Wax, while looks nice, is awful to open. Get rid of that too!

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Originally to prevent rodents from gnawing at the corks. Not too many rodent problems now a days…

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Well they’re still around, but we have mousetraps for that. No need for the foil. Sometimes though, it is a nice place for the wine to seep (instead of on the bottle neck) when certain Germans become overzealous with filling…

It could be a plot by foil cutter manufacturers.

If the bottle has a true foil on it, not the plastic ones, you do not need a foil cutter. Simply grab the foil firmly and twist. Off it comes. First trick I learned working in a tasting room.

Wax is easy to open.

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They may not be around so much in retail/wholesale spaces, but if the winery is connected to the vineyard and it has any sort of livestock that need feed (i.e. chickens), I’d think rodents are a given. I’d guess they like grapes/must too. On my farm, rodents invaded my barn and they easily evaded all sorts of traps. Now my three barn cats have a full time job. I don’t keep wine down there, but rodents will chew just about anything imaginable to get what they want. Lead might have stopped them, but foil absolutely will not.

Clearly wineries such as PGC have figured it out how to manage all of this, and foil is now decorative.

Well, I believe lead was outlawed, or at least discontinued in use. (Lead residue was found on the necks of bottles that used lead foils.)
The need to look traditional has kept foils in use.

Stelvin closures do not need to be as long as they are. Again, the need to look traditional won out.

Don’t get me started on tree bark bottle seals…

Peter Rosback

Sineann

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I opened a 15 year old Brewer Clifton Chardonnay with a wax capsule, tonight. Good luck with using the “ignore it and just drill right through” method. I opened it fine, but not by following that advice.

What is the value of foils, wax or otherwise? Nothing except tradition, really.

-Al

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Al, curious what the issue would have been?

I believe you when you say the “ignore and drill method” wouldn’t have worked. In the last five years since I’ve take that approach it’s worked flawlessly for all but maybe one bottle. Still, I dislike wax and agree it, like it’s counterparts, serves no purpose.

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It does serve a purpose - it’s a design element or an accent. And in some cases, even the logo itself (Maker’s Mark or Belle Glos, for instance). That’s as important and valid as anything else.

That video applies to 50% of wax capsules at best. If the cork is starting to show any sort of age, it will be a mess (even her cork in the video barely survives). And if the wax is not pliable, it can shatter into little wax bits that fall into the wine.

Adam, I love what you’re doing your wines, but to me the wax is a design that detracts rather than adds value…

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All you need to do is crack the top layer of the wax to expose the cork. The screw in the center method does that. If the cork is falling apart, I pull out my Ah-So. If you get wax bits in the wine, which I have never personally had an issue with, run it through a filter like a Venturi.