screwcaps=CHEAP

WINE TALK
21

Greg,’

All I can tell you is that in my tasting room, there are a lot more ‘applauds’ then ‘why would you do that’ when they see that all of my wines are under screw caps . . . and I deal with plenty of non wine geeks in there . . .

Cheers

22

If you open bottles from your cellar regularly and have only noticed TCA 3 times in 15 years, then I think it’s safe to say that you’re not ultra sensitive to TCA. I have friends who are equally unsensitive. Don’t get me wrong, they have incredible palates (much better than mine), they notice TCA in a really badly affected bottle and hate it. But 3 times from your cellar in 15 years (assuming you open at least 1 bottle per week) isn’t lucky, it means that you’re incredibly fortunate in not being ultra sensitive. Having a good palate and not being TCA sensitive is the jackpot, I envy you.

Cheers,
-Robert

23

We put “Sealed with a Screwcap for Your Protection!” on the POS of every Stelvin closed wine. Gets people to either laugh or ask…

24

Philip,
Are you saying that you think that screwcaps were a major factor in that winery failing? Do you think that if they had gone for cork they’d still be in business? Screwcaps are easy to point a finger at, and I do notice that older wine drinkers have a major prejudice against them. But to be honest, I’ve never even heard of that winery even though I used to really enjoy Sanford’s wines and semi-follow domestic pinot. I’m guessing screwcaps weren’t the only, or even one of, the most serious problems. But that’s just a guess, maybe you know more. It’s definitely not a clear cut as your thread title suggests.

I’m not suggesting screwcaps are a good decision or one I’d make, I really don’t know (even though I think that cork is deeply flawed), just that your thread title and summary of the article are strong overstatements.

Best,
-Robert

25

Wrong Robert. In the tasting groups that I had been involved I would definatively detect TCA t much lower levels than most others, sometimes I would be the first to pick it up and then joined by a couple of other olks that would eventually agree.

It means that I don’t have wine in my cellar bottled by indescriminate providers that go for the lowest priced corks. It also means that I have been very lucky.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not upset, but you don’t know me, have not tasted with me, and have no basis for makng the assumption that you did.

[oops.gif]

26

Or it could mean that the other people in your group have even worse palates than you do. [stirthepothal.gif]

27

I have a hard time imagining that anything could dent sales of Monfortino or Giacosa red label.

I don’t know; I think that if a very well-known, top rank producer or two switched to Stelvins that could be the tipping point for a lot of people; remember how one event, The Judgment of Paris, changed a great many minds about the potential of California wines?

28

Too bad for Richard and his wife They craft great wines and are genuine nice people. Alma Rosa was one of my highlights off my Santa Barbra County trip last year.

I’m a supporter of screwcap. I have had to MANY wines affected by TCA and it is absolutely frustrating. I have not noticed any downsides to wine under screwcap; reduction… I will however report that the cork company the winery I work for uses RARELY has a TCA’d cork. Is there a lesson to be learned? Maybe, if a winery if worried about brand images correlated with the screwcap (and the uninformed public) pay the price for top notch corks. Your TCA rate will be less than 1% as is ours.

29

If you opened one bottle a week for 15 years and only got 3 corked bottles, that’s 0.3% (if you open more bottles, like virtually everyone here. obviously that figure would be much lower). The cork industry claims to have made great strides, and like David M. claims that there are now detectible TCA rates around 1%, but even they concede 2% up until last few years (and most people I know would say 3-5%). That’s beyond lucky for anyone supersensitive. I’m at best average, and would guess I’ve easily hit 2-3%. I think most people here don’t buy “indiscriminate” producers- in last few years I’ve had corked Giacosa, Lafleur, Haut-Brion, Jamet, Ridge, Mayacamas, Zilliken, etc.

30

This starts to go in the direction of counting angels dancing on pinheads without actually seeing an example in the market. But at least for the US market Piedmont drinkers are attracted by tradition–long gentle macerations, large neutral botti, etc. Sure, the biggest names probably could pull off such a move in going to Stelvins. But otherwise I’d expect some skepticism about aging a Barolo 20-40 years in closures that haven’t really been tested over those time frames.

31

Well, actually by calculating probabilities with a binomial distribution, you can make very reasonable assumptions and estimates. If I assume 50 bottles per year over 15 years, that’s 750 bottles. At a 1% corkage rate, there is a 5.83% chance you would have encountered 3 or fewer corked wines. At a more realistic 2% corkage rate, there is a 0.02% chance you encountered 3 or fewer corked wines. If you are drinking a lot fewer than 1 bottle per week from your cellar, though, then 3 corked bottles in 15 years would be much more likely.

I’m sorry to say, but odds are you just are not as sensitive to TCA rather than really, really lucky or have the magic hand in selection. Group tastings are not a good indicator because the dynamics dominate more than anything else. Once a particular flaw is suggested, it’s hard for folks to get past it. This could lead to ‘false positives’ where the wine has some other flaw or peculiarity not related to TCA.

32

The use of screwcaps ARE and SHOULD BE a marketing issue with any wine brand. In the case of Alma Rosa, it is a positive one, and consistent with Richard’s philosophy of quality and innovation. Yes, there are uninformed consumers that equate screwcaps with cheap/cheaper wine and traditional consumers that prefer cork closures that may pass on Alma Rosa wines, but I bet for every one of those consumers you have two that will support the brand for that very same marketing statement.

Fred Brander
The Brander Vineyard

33

I believe a couple wineries recently reverted to cork closures. BTW 3 corked bottles in 15 years would be highly unlikely.

34

Hi Robert,

No, I am not claiming that screwcaps were the cause of Alma’s demise, I was just reporting what the article said.

I think the screw cap issue breaks down into use in early drinking wines (probably OK) and long maturation wines. As we both know, fine wine is not a science. The nature of gasseous transfer through a cork over 10-30 years has not been fully elucidated. The only way to know if a screwcap is interchangable with a cork would be to compare 2 such wines 20 years from now, and I do not think a great wine will gamble like that.

Philip

35

I agree whole heartedly. However there was a blind tasting of the 97 Plumpjack reserve cab where the screw cap version was preferred.

Assuming that TCA taint rate is around 5% and only 10% of the drinkers are able to detect TCA and most of them will accept the failure rate, what drives the wineries to change to screw cap, in lieu of the current bias?

36

Aren’t some great wines already being made under screw cap, as well as under cork? I can think of Chateau Margaux as an example…

37

Hi,
With our 2007 Russian River Valley Pinot noir we bottled a significant portion of the wine under screwcap as well as cork which was retailing for $20/bottle (same price both closures). In our tasting room, every customer was offered a pour of the screw cap finished wine, but both closures were offered for sale. The cork finished wine (which no one tried in the tasting room) out sold the screwcap finished wine by almost 3 to 1 in the tasting room. We haven’t bottled the Russian River Valley Pinot under screw cap since.

Personally, I agree that screwcaps are much better for overall wine quality, both whites as well as reds, and consistency from bottle to bottle, but the consumer acceptance seems to still be lagging quite a bit.

Regards,
Brian Maloney
Winemaker
DeLoach Vineyards

38

While I find the notion of 3 corked wines in 15 years implausible and more suggestive of a lack of TCA sensitivity than anything else, the quip implying that TCA detection is correlated with palate quality is disturbing. TCA thresholds are often a question of biological sensitivity that in no way relates to palate quality. An ITB friend of mine has a great palate, but a ridiculously high threshold, and it took years for him to accept that, when others with lower sensitivity diisagreed with him that a wine was corked, it was just a function of his inborn inability to detect corked wines, not an attack on his palate.


I remember Robert Callahan’s wise suggestion many years ago that a tasting group should determine who the most sensitive members of the group are, and once they declare a wine to be corked, the rest of the group should move on and not watw time with frivolous debate, any more than a color blind person should debate whether something is red or green.


It is a shame that consumer ignorance and foolish traditionalism is an obstacle to alternate closures, but it is an unfortunate reality. The rise of antipodean wines under screwcap seems to be helping to change the tide, so there is at least some room for hope.

39

Haven’t the Aussies already done long term testing like that at almost all levels of wine?

40

Even if they haven’t formally tested (and I bet some of them, or the universities, have), there should be considerable anecdotal evidence by now as Aussie and NZ producers have used srew tops for years.