Have you ever wondered….. Should I buy a Screw Top or Cork? Does it matter?
Well, I was thinking about that. I know that wine out of a box doesn’t matter if it’s under 10 wine. And the history of screw on’s goes back many decades and I associate it with jug wine. But now, we are noticing even better bottles of wine are using screw tops.
But the challenge of knowing about whether a screw on top is better than a cork has to first start with someone in the industry.
One of the blogs on the web had good quotes that make sense to me:
Probably the most important matter for wine enthusiasts is under which circumstances your wine is best preserved. In general you could say cork as well as screw cap or most other alternatives are fine if you intend to drink the wine within two years after bottling. But red wines that need ageing and complex white wines such as Le Montrachet Grand Cru are, as most specialists say, better off with cork. The slow ingress of oxygen through the cork is important in the process of aging a wine, since just a milligram of oxygen a year is sufficient to break down the sulphites added by the winemaker to protect it from oxidation. More research is needed to determine whether or not screw caps are suitable for ageing wine, but as technology and quality of screw caps is improving quickly, we may see an increase in screw-cap bottled premium wines soon.
The Senior Winemaker at Cupcake in Livermore, Calif. James Foster, says he loves screw caps for his sauvignon blanc and pinot grigio.
“The screw cap keeps it [the bottle] sealed and does not allow oxygen to enter the bottle,” Foster says. And that, he explains, ensures that the wine remains crisp and well-preserved.
“Bigger, fuller wines benefit from a little oxygen that the cork naturally allows the wine to intake while it’s in the bottle,” says Foster. The tiny bit of air inside the bottle, Foster says, helps smooth out the tannins, which give reds their velvety mouth feel but can also create a harsher taste. The extra air oxidizes the tannins so they’re softer, making the wine “even more drinkable and approachable to our consumers,” he says.
Further, it actually makes sense that if it isn’t an ‘important’ wine, to use a screw top, which can be stored both laying down and standing.
Another expert, the key Winemaker at d’Arenberg in Australia says “Screw caps slow down the aging process a bit; it’s like aging wine in a really cold cellar,” Osborn explained. “I’ve done a lot of experiments and have found that the slower the wines age, the better they are. I want my wines to age as slowly as possible.” But others insist that reds won’t get better with time in a screw cap.
Screwed wine doesn’t mean cheap wine any more, either. Many vineyards are screw topping their finer wines these days. So I think you have to use the concept that if you’re not storing and developing wine, just buying to drink, either cork or screw is acceptable and screw stands up while storing in your fridge for white, counter for red for a day or two, whereas corked needs to remain on its’ side.
Healthy Happy Eating,
