Wines are Getting Screwed!

Let’s say that you are strolling through your local wine shop, drooling over the Grand Cru Burgundies and ogling the tasty Italian reds. The only thing that could be better is if you had Bill Gates’ checkbook in your hand. But something makes you stop. Something that provokes bewilderment and disdain. Perhaps a pang of revulsion goes coursing through your stomach. Surely there must be some mistake. A bottle of wine, with a screw cap? Here? Has Bob, your local wine dude, lost his marbles? Is this abomination an accident or is Boone’s Farm calling the shots now? Well, believe it or not and like it or not, many wines are arriving under both a screw cap and many other alternatives to cork. And you had better start getting used to it.

No longer is the world of screw cap wine reserved for something consumed from a brown paper bag. Quality wines from the United States, Australia and even France are arriving daily and the only thing holding back a total conversion to synthetic enclosures is consumer perception. Quality wines like the elegant whites of the notable Burgundy producer Verget and powerhouse Cabernets from Whitehall Lane and PlumpJack in Napa Valley. But noone has embraced the move towards alternative cork technology like New Zealand and Australia. New Zealand has made winemaking under Stelvin, the name of the most widely used style of screw cap, almost a nationwide mandate. The Kiwis are carving an ever-increasing niche out of the world market, and they feel that Stelvin is the best way to ensure an intact and perfect wine.

But why, you ask? What’s wrong with using the bark of a tree that takes 25 years to mature before harvest and has all the inherent flaws of any other soft wood? The two biggest problems are a shortage of quality corkwood and TCA: trichloroanisole. With the explosion of world wine production over the last 50 years there has hardly been enough cork to go around. While this presents many a problem the biggest may be TCA, commonly known as cork taint. TCA is a chemical compound of phenols, chlorine and mold. It forms naturally in cork forests and occurs frequently in a winery if the wrong cleaning solutions are used. TCA found in a cork will taint the aromas and flavors of the wine, resulting in musty odors of a damp basement or soggy cardboard. Most wine insiders estimate between 3-5% of all wine is affected by TCA.

These problems have forced winemakers over the years to look for new solutions. The first experiments with screw caps in the 1950s were horrible failures, mainly due to primitive technology. The metal rusted or cork and paper was placed inside the cap, only to rot in the cellar. Synthetic material corks were the next step. Still in use today these do not create a perfect seal on the wine, allowing oxidation to occur. Oxygen is what ages a wine. Microscopic amounts of fresh air seep through the wood, allowing it to age slowly. Too much air and the wine ages too quickly, spoiling. No air in an enclosure leads to reductive qualities, which smell of sulphur and rotten eggs. This is why it is so tricky to recreate what the cork does naturally.

But, like all things in modern times technology will find a way. Stelvin enclosures today are sealed with various non-reactive substances like Sarinex, a cellulose material that allows just a small amount of air into the wine, just like a natural cork. The biggest complaint of Stelvin wines was of reductive sulphuric aromas. This was from not enough oxygen in the wine after bottling. Easily solved. Today more air is left in the head space between the wine and the cap. Another gripe was that no one knew how well the wine would age. Wines under Stelvin tend to age more slowly. Great for that fresh and fruity Pinot Gris, but what about my $200 Bordeaux that I want to age? While Bordeaux is reluctant to embrace the Stelvin, it is only a matter of time before an enclosure is created that they will accept. Some Australian Rieslings that have spent 20 years under Stelvin are still drinking beautifully today. These examples shoot holes in the criticism that Stelvin enclosures won’t allow a wine to age properly.

So all that’s left is to change the consumer perception. Not an easy thing to do. Marketing from wineries such as Bonny Doon in California is slowly changing the ideology by including factoids and brochures with their wines. Soon enough all New Zealand wines will be under Stelvin. It would be naive, however, to think that price doesn’t play a factor as well. Quality cork can cost between 11 and 13 cents per bottle, while a screw cap in its various forms is around 7. The larger wine firms are adopting screw caps from a financial standpoint, the savings from the caps and not losing wine to TCA is enough to sway them. Smaller wineries enjoy the idea because it ensures that the wine will taste how the winemaker intended, even if you only try their wine once.

Modern acrylics and glass stoppers will make their way into the market as not everyone will accept the threads of a screw cap on a bottle of fine wine. Obviously, marketing your wine is an important part of sales. Image can be everything when selecting from a bevy of wines all competing for shelf space. It seems you can’t swing a wino nowadays without hitting a bottle of wine with a big red truck, or a monkey, or even freaking Godzilla on the label. Someone will come up with a prettier Stelvin enclosure. But, until then remember people: it’s what’s inside that counts.

It is our humble opinion at winegeeks.com that the Stelvin is the way of the future. Cork was first used to stopper a bottle of wine in the 18th century. It’s time for a more modern and consistent way of doing things. The Stelvin may be great for a fresh and fruity wine, but the jury is still out as far as those big reds that need years to achieve perfection. While we recommend that you should go Gung Ho for a young Riesling, or a spicy Gewurztraminer, or even a Shiraz or Syrah all available under Stelvin, you may want to wait to see what the future holds before buying futures with a screw cap.

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