Mike Officer bottled some Carlisle wines with both cork and screw cap and sold them as pairs. I buried them in the bottom of the pile so I would forget where they are and let them age. Some day I will open the two together as a test.
I also have D’Arenberg and Mitolo in screw cap. The Mitolo GAM is an Aussi bottling back to 2003. The bottles for sale in Australia were screw cap and in the US were cork.
I wish I had hung on to mine. I think it was the Cardiac. I bought them with the same intention, but ended up drinking both on separate occasions as I ran low on Carlisle at the time I drank them. if you do a side by side, please post the results. I would fully support Mike going 100% screw caps as I sip on a mildly corked three birds… I wish it were less risky for producers to make the switch.
I’m still cellaring a pair of those first 1997 Plumpjack Reserve cabs closed with cork and screw cap. I’m planning to hold them 20 years and taste them blind together.
Finished a 2010 Wine Guerrilla Monte Rosso Zinfandel tonight that was quite nice. All the WG wines come with a stelvin closure. All old vine SVD Zinfandels and field blends. Very interesting wines at good price points.
I’d love Mike to chime in as well. I thought he did either a basic syrah or zin bottling under both, no? Something priced at $20 or so? But I don’t remember him doing this on a consistent basis - or has he?
Would love to know that prompted him to do it in the first place, and why he has not continued if he truly hasn’t.
The Italians I talk to all say that they don’t see Barolo under screwcap, although as far as I know there is no technical reason not to bottle ageworthy reds under the closure as long as the oxygen transmission characteristics of the closure are matched to the wine. But other than that, I think the attitude is slowly shifting. Too slowly for me, I’m sick of cork, and I’ve had two batches of wine ruined by the agglomerated cork closures this year alone, so the alternatives don’t make sense either.