Tim,
You hit upon one of the primary concerns many have about a wine’s ability to age under screwcap: will it actually age, or is bottling a wine under screwcap virtually akin to putting said wine into a time capsule of sorts? Said another way, I don’t want my 30 yo wine to taste like it’s 5 yo.; I worry that screwcaps might seal bottles too well.
At the end of the day, the proof will be in the pudding — preferably the pudding that most wine geeks are interested in tasting.
I’ve had the Cullen Diana Madeline a few times; I think it would fall onto the lighter side of the spectrum in Bordeaux. It’s definitely anything but a fruit bomb. Having said that, I don’t have the experience to know how it ages.
Brian’s question is the big unanswered one - how will wines that traditionally develop with age respond under screwcap. But we never get to find out because nobody is finishing classified growth Bordeaux, Grand Cru or Premiere Cru Burgundy, Barolo, or wines like Ridge Monte Bello and Dominus under screwcaps.
If it were me personally, I’d take the screwcaps, even for those kinds of wines, at least assuming I were doing it for my drinking and not for resale. Take away the TCA and oxidation and other risks that come from cork, while accepting the risk that at worst, your wine may age too slowly.
I’m not sure how conclusive it is that wine matures because of air transfer through the cork, but if that is the case, I believe screwcaps could be engineered to pick any amount of air intake that was thought desirable, including the amount that is typical of corks.
They most definitely age under screwcap…whether they have the right ingress oxygen levels to age at a reasonable pace, hard to say…
I think if you did what Ponsot did and take the ingress levels of top quality corks and then use a seal that does the same thing, you should end up with the right product at the end.
I think the only question is, does the cork itself do anything for the aging process…You’d think NO but maybe it is adding flavor or doing something odd that no one is aware of yet…
As far as the overblown Aussies…Oddly enough, a lot of them seem to age alright…some don’t…I’d actually put the Signature in the “it does age” category…but it is on the biggish end of the scale for sure…
I do know that things like Hunter Semillon, has been aging far SLOWER under screwcap…This ends up being fine for lower end Semillon where they start hitting their straps at 5-10 years under screwcap…but take a Tyrrells Vat 1 and there are some that are 10+ years old and are not where they would be under cork…But that said, I think there have been a lot of changes with screwcaps in the last 5 years and the ingress oxygen amounts have changed quite a bit…I’d expect to see them age at a better pace for current releases…
Anecdotal evidence does not mean that stand up wineries and producers do not exist outside of the social media savvy.
That being said, I think this is a case where the victim (the consumer) shoulders much of the blame. If the majority of wine consumers routinely returned corked wines then the mountain of flawed bottles coming back to wineries and retailers would force some kind of change. Too many people do not understand corked wines and/or do not care enough to return/report the bad bottles. That has masked the problem in the past, and continues to mask the problem today.
For my case, I return/report probably 95% of the corked wines I open. The remaining 5% were purchased from merchants/wineries that are no longer in business. I have zero issues with wineries or merchants standing behind those bottles. That might be a function of my buying patterns, where I am a very loyal customer of about 3 wine shops and a small (but still too large) group of wineries for direct purchases.
The oldest bottle I have had under screwcap was a NZ Pinot from 2005 and it definitely showed maturation. One issue I have read is sulfurous reduction but I have never observed that. There are some wines out there with 30+ years under screwcap. Wonder if anyone has tried one of these.?
No 30 year old screw cap wines in my cellar, but I do have them back to 2001. I am definitely seeing development. It’s slow, but it’s happening. Of course everything in my cellar is maturing slowly - it’s the glacial cellar!
I’ve had a couple of 30+ year old Australian Riesling under screwcap and both had developed and were in great condition. The 1979 Pewsey Vale was everything one would want in mature Australian Riesling - complex but also retaining vibrancy.
The issue of (not enough) oxygen ingress should no longer be a major problem, there are screw caps available with liners that provide controlled oxygen ingress - for example see the “Stelvin Inside” closures which give winemakers a choice of 4 different oxygen transmission rates.
Larry – I wasn’t suggesting you use hyperbole, just a title more descriptive of the thread’s content (which you did). And now it’s great to see the conversation picking up steam.
I know this issue has been addressed in various threads around here over the years, but with the advancements in technology I think it’s time to revisit it and kick it around some more. I’d love it if this became one of those “evergreen” threads that are home to open issues and go dozens and dozens of pages…
Thanks for sharing the link. I too wish that consumers had more options for seal, especially in Old World wines.
Hunter Semillon producers were on the whole very quick adopters - the wastage rate on museum release stock made it clear to them how bad their wines fared under cork. There was a wonderful picture on an Aussie forum about a decade ago, of an unbroken case of Semillon, where the colour ranged from straw coloured to deep bronze and pretty much every shade inbetween. Quite alarming variation for the same wine, from the same vintage, stored in the same cellar and in the same case.
So the argument is made. There is no reason for cork closures other than “looks”. Seems like a poor way to do business to me. Why risk a product that can be as fragile as a great wine on a poor technology when better is available?
It’s helpful to ask the question this way – if wine had always been sealed with screw caps, and someone came along recently and suggested replacing those with corks, what would our reaction be? Or what if wine were a brand new product invented yesterday – what would we start out using to seal it?
It’s actually a good exercise for many things in politics and society. We almost always proceed from things as they are and have been, and then it seems radical and scary to consider big changes from where we are. But it’s good to stop sometimes and think, if we were starting over again today, would there need to be these things in this form to begin with?
Mistake number 1 - assuming that anyone should give a shit about what ‘Wine Professionals’ prefer.
If those preferences influence what makes it on to a wine list, or what gets stocked in a shop, then I’d say it matters a whole lot.
What wide swath of professionals are you casting aside? Critics? Merchants? Sommeliers? Importers? Everyone?
Old news…
Given that screwcaps are now made with a range of oxygen transmission, it would seem that the last technical question has been answered. Now it’s marketing (not that that’s not a real issue).
Well, even wine professionals are consumers. The preference would to be not to get flawed wines or wines that go bad when they don’t need to. And wine professionals do make a difference as they are often responsible for what gets repped, what gets into stores, who is buying wines.