Talking Wine – January 2019

“Screwcaps are the best closures for wine” says Australian winemaker Chester Osborn. I would probably agree. They certainly slow down the ageing process and are akin to keeping wines in a very cold cellar. I have conducted a few experiments particularly with Sauvignon Blanc where I aged a 2009 vintage in both screwcap and cork. The wine was the same and we opened these wines in 2015 in our tasting room – I covered the wines and asked a group to compare the two without them knowing what they were drinking. The one in screwcap was considered by everyone to be a fresh , clean fruit driven wine whilst the cork wine was dull and limp with less fruit and musty overtones.

Mr Osborn continues “I’ve done a lot of experiments and found that the slower the wines age, the better they are” . The debate will continue for many years but the suggestion is that this will work for whites rather better than for reds. However the threat of a ‘corked’ wine, which happens all too often, still is enough for me to reach for the screw cap and not the cork screw! My Christmas Pommard was corked – just a disappointment.

Whilst on the subject of cork vs. screwcap, a recent debate in Portugal (the home of cork trees) came to the conclusion that there was no need to place bottles on their side to store them correctly. With good humidity the cork should last for years and some do tend to deteriorate if stored on their side and left in contact with the wine. The myths are apparently falling down one by one now more serious studies and experiments are taking place.