I am surprised that the glass stoppers have not made more headway. I have some wines under glass from German and Austrian producers, and they are coming along nicely. Any thoughts on the outside aging range for the glass?
If white Burg producers went to screwcaps, I’d start buying them again. Percentage-wise, premox is much worse than TCA. I’ll begrudgingly put up with a 2-4% failure rate on wines I love, but not a 25%+ failure rate. I believe screwcaps are a solution to premox that is staring producers in the face. They are just too cowardly to try it.
David,
Too early to say how long glass stoppers go. We are 10 years in on our first (a Pinot). It is fine - aging well and better than the same wine under cork. I’d have to say that testing and experience shows that the tin-lined screwcaps are best for keeping wines freshest for the longest, a reality that inclines me towards using them…
Peter Rosback
Sineann (ITB)
Cam,
Thanks for sharing - awesome indeed!
Now let me cue up the arguments I’ve heard when stuff like this comes up:
‘Yeah, but it’s a white. Show me you can do it with a red.’
‘Well, that’s an Aussie wine. Show me you can do this with a Bordeaux or Burgundy.’
‘Yeah, but it probably would have been better under cork anyway.’
I know these all sound silly, but it’s what I’m faced with each and every day but those who simply do not want to believe that there is ‘another way’ . . . Amazing.
Ship some of those over here please 
Cheers!
We have moved all of our early drinking wines and will move the shorter aging (5-ish yr) wines to NomaCorc Select Bio (sugarcane based cork-like closure). Breathable, recyclable, carbon neutral… We have been very happy so far.
We are still looking for the best solutions in the 10+ year range.
Gregory Patriat at Jean-Claude Boisset and Benjamin Leroux both seal a portion of their production under screwcap. DRC have screwcap trials. As soon as there is wide acceptance in the States and the UK I reckon the tap will turn on. We need courage from the consumers in these larger markets to adopt the best closure that suits the wines being made today. It will fix tca and premox overnight but for some reason we have people arguing against its usage and want to over-think the cure!
I think it would help if they started using better looking screwcaps though…
Stelvin Lux looks and feels nice (although I’ve heard of some issues). Or Guala…
It won’t make a difference performance wise…but just looks and feels nicer.
Both Boisset and Leroux use Stelvin Lux.
There are many people who have ‘heard of some issues’ who need to start to listen to those who have tasted 1000’s of wines under screwcap with no issues.
Vincent, how many bottles of wine have broken on you whilst sitting in your cellar, and how many corked wines have you had?
For me, I’ve only ever had one bottle slip out of a rack and break (likely due to my error) but have had plenty of corked wines. Fortunately, many producers replace the wine when I’ve made them aware of it, but always with a current vintage, never the older vintage of the corked wine.
That’s the thing about science, it’s still true whether or not we like it.
Now, if they started bottling DRC under screwcap, I’m pretty sure that would be Parker’s “I’m coming for you, Elizabeth!” moment?
No…I’m not talking about screwcap in general issues…talking about Lux issues…and this is from Aussie producers that use screwcap.
Basically, because of the design it sometimes has issues tightening properly…This is only with the Lux…and why some producers have changed back to normal stelvin…They’ve probably fixed that specific issue though…I don’t know…
I’m one of those people that has tasted 1000s of wines under screwcap…and I’m a big fan of it…You must have read my post as if I wasn’t…
Certainly not trying to have a dig at you Kevin. I was unaware of any problems with Lux.
Yeap…no problem…I haven’t heard of problems with it at a lot of places…just a few that have said they’ve had issues with it not tightening correctly (because of how the plastic screw portion fits in the cap? I don’t know the details).
Maybe they were just doing something wrong.
But I think the main point is…I think the nicer Screwcaps (Lux, Guala) would help in getting wider acceptance…at least in the US. I love screwcap but I do admit, the normal ones feel cheapish…especially compared to Lux or Guala which have more heft and look nicer…even screwing them back on feels nicer…I guess from a huge volume perspective it would be a lot of money but on a per bottle basis I don’t imagine it is a very big difference…
I’ll have to look closely at which cap it is, but Littorai uses a very nice looking version for their Rosé.
To me, one of the ‘challenges’ of the Lux is that it does not look like a screw cap - and that is an intentional attempt by the manufacturer, and the wineries using it, to make it appear that the wine does NOT have a screw cap.
Look, if you make the decision to use a screw cap, be proud of it rather than trying to ‘hide’ it. You can do a really upscale job of customizing the cap with logo, etc and I’d love to see more of that . . .
Just my $.02 . . .
What are you paying per on those?
I am contemplating switching all of our reds to Twin Tops. Those are the amalgamated cork with a thin layer of solid cork on each end. We have been using them for years on our whites and TCA rates are VERY low.
Of course, a rate of 0 would be better. Any tests on those? How long have they been in use?
Fred Sanford may have been 40 years ahead of his time then:
Speaking of “sick” - Larry - what is that in your avatar photo? Looks like fermenting Vegemite. Or worse. Ugh!
Actually, it’s a juice sample from grapes that I sampled this morning. I crushed the grapes and strained the juice. Guess the variety
Just glad it doesn’t look like that when you bottle it! An Outlier for sure…