OK, grumpy time, I’m fed up with hearing that corks are the best option if you want to store a wine that improves with age. What part of the fact that wine DOES age consistently and very well under screwcap don’t people understand? If you are happy buying good wine, aging it for 10-40 years and then being unperturbed if it’s faulty when finally opened so be it, enjoy your love of cork.
We know whites age magnificently under screwcap, as here in Oz myself and friends have often enjoyed Chardonnay, Semillon and Riesling wines showing beautifully (and with secondary/tertiary characters) under SC at 10-20 years old (and 37 years in one notable instance). Red wines haven’t been bottled here consistently for as long under SC, but we’ve enjoyed many SC red wines that are aging well at around 10-15 years, and these were from the early days of SC where ingress was much less than is available now.
I’m all for glass stoppers and Ardea as well, but lets stop fooling ourselves that corks are so much better than SC for aging wine long term. They are simply too unreliable, period. Unless you get that one cork like the bottle second from the left in the pics above. In which case a SC would have been equally good anyway.
And as for the ‘reduction is caused by SC’ thing, perhaps a small % of wines will show more reduction for longer under SC but it can happen under cork too (esp if it’s a ‘perfect cork’ as per wine two above, oh sorry did you want a faulty cork instead which might let in more air and happily soften that reductive character?). I’m no reduction expert, but from what I have read it’s more about the winemaker and the grape than the closure. And where the SC has been shown to be a factor, it’s usually with the older zero ingress SC’s.
I know it’s and people still love their corks and identify SC with stifling, sulphur, reductive, cheap wine thinking but I for one live in hope that time and experience will change that world mindset sooner rather than later. I want the wine to show as the winemaker intended after all their hard work growing grapes and crafting their beloved wine, not to have it ruined by a little piece of tree.
I honestly can’t tell if you’re serious, but if you are, your reasoning here is unquestionably incorrect. Many, many wines that have been maturing under screwcap have already proven you wrong, long ago. The amount of evidence from personal experiences shared on this board alone (and SO much other evidence elsewhere on the internet and plenty of opportunity for firsthand experience, although maybe not in your market) is the reason I think you might not be serious, but the length and detail of your post makes me think you are.
I fully agree, Tim. Great post, by the way. I only pulled out this single piece because it is so relevant to the point I was making. There are so many myths people believe about wine, but I really want this one ridiculous one to die. I even hear otherwise well-informed people in the business (which are only a small portion of all of the people in the business) perpetuate it, and it drives me crazy. Every time this comes up, at least one person posts the same nonsense, which is based on no fact at all.
Didn’t know it needed explanation but try to stay with me.
I, in my short life, have never had a wine less than 4 years old that was oxidized due to a closure failure.
Now I know you want to jump on the TCA issue but in the picture we cannot see TCA we can see color changes from oxidation and the conversation has been centered around oxidation.
Sorry, I did forget to mention white Burgundy being the major premox issued affected wine. I haven’t been collecting long enough to experience it.
Also, I do understand that wine does indeed age under screwcap. I just find that they do a fantastic job of keeping things much fresher and cleaner as they age to the point where a wine will taste pretty much like it did when it was bottled. Keep in mind, this statement comes from personal experience with sweet wine and white wine only thus far.
As for the reds, I get that they would be just as good for red wines. Unfortunately, I have no experience with high-end screwcapped red wine and have not come across any studies myself (but I will Google it later today) and have experienced enough excellent long-aged red wine under cork to personally favor it. Again, I would be very happy to be shown a high-end red table or sweet wine that did amazing under screwcap.
Thanks for the reply - and the explanation. And yep, I guess I’m just a bit slow . . .
I’ve seen oxidation take place after less than 4 years way too often - and no, not just from cork issues.
I’ve seen wine bottled with too high a dissolved oxygen content and the SO2 was not effective at minimizing oxidation.
I have, in 2 incidents, had white wines oxidiz e prematurely because the the lip of the bottle had apparently cracked at bottling and it was not caught.
But thanks again for explaining your comment once again.
I am glad to report that the last 3 bottles of screw-capped 05 Baumard Savennieres I have opened (all within the last 3 months) were firing on all cylinders; in fact, they were actually quite youthful.
I am fairly certain that 05 was the year that Florent Baumard switched to screw-tops due to premox problems with corks. I love me some old Chenin so this makes me quite happy!
I partially agree with you here Tran. From my experiences screwcapped wines do a great job of keeping the wine fresher and cleaner as they age but I don’t agree with your statement that the wines will taste pretty much the same as they did when they were bottled. For example in January I attended a Pewsey Vale Riesling vertical tasting put on by one of the members of the tasting group I drink with. The oldest of the bottles had started showing some tertiary characters. Further the 2-3 year olds were all in their “dumb phase” and not showing that well. We had the same experience a year or so ago when we did the same exercise but with Howard Park Rieslings.
Notes for these two tastings can be found here (these are group tasting notes that were then written up by Allan). Big tip of the hat to Allan btw, he provided all of these wines from his own cellar.
I’m not 100% certain but I believe Margaret River cut over from cork to screwcap in the mid 2000’s for their Cabs. I’ve definitely got MR Cabernet from the 2004 vintage that is under cork. I’ll be opening a number of these come winter (it’s 100+F here today) and am curious to see how they perform. Now a days it’s virtually impossible to find a producer in the region that doesn’t use screwcaps. My expectation is that the screwcapped red table wines will age more slowly and uniformly than if they were under cork.
We have 11 vintages of our Pinots under Stelvin (seranex liner that supposedly allows some oxygen). The wines have aged, similar to what you would expect from good cork. While we didn’t put any of the wines under cork, we have compared them to wines from other producers (same vintage, same vineyard) and have seen all the same age characteristics. So I’m 100% convinced that Stelvins are a great closure for wines that need to age.
Reach out to Aaron Miller at Plumpjack and find out about how they feel - they’ve been bottling their top of the line reserve Cab in both screwcap and cork since the 97 vintage.
And just as an aside - I keep getting asked for research papers to prove that wines will age well under screwcap. Not to be a wise-arse, but please show me studies that wine will age consistently and fault free under cork - you won’t find them . . .
Larry, do you keep a stash of your reds from each vintage? I know Tercero only goes back to 2006, but it will awesome if down the road you can convene some well-regarded tasters to taste your reds at 15+ years old, and to demonstrate that they developed and matured under screwcap. That would be another nice piece of evidence against the idea that screwcaps aren’t for ageworthy red wines.
I do keep a small amount of my reds from each wine from each vintage. With the sheer number of wines that I make, though, I don’t keep much of any one
We did have an 06 Mourvedre at the dinner down in the OC last year that you helped arrange - and I thought that it showed really well for having been in screwcap for about 7 years . . .
As Brian Loring said, though, he’s been doing reds longer than I and I’m sure he’d love to spread the love as well
and people still love their corks and identify SC with stifling, sulphur, reductive, cheap wine thinking but I for one live in hope that time and experience will change that world mindset sooner rather than later. I want the wine to show as the winemaker intended after all their hard work growing grapes and crafting their beloved wine, not to have it ruined by a little piece of tree.![[tease.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/c/c5b32b76bebaa359b0452ae247b61189ffe5fa7e.gif "tease"){kind=small}
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