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Do Community members have a view on whether screwcaps work better for reds or whites?
My tentative view is that I have found that white wines keep fresher and better preserved under screwcap…but reds are rather inconsistent. But I have not tasted enough to come to a conclusion about reds.
Wouldn’t you have to drink a lot of the same reds under cork and screwtop , and then a lot of the same whites under cork and screwtop before you could come to any conclusions on this? Otherwise you’d be comparing different colour wines with different kinds of closure and trying to come to a conclusion about the closure.
Not convinced I have explained that too well. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that there are too many variables to provide evidence about one of them.
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I am generally happier with Stelvin closures. I think the micro-oxygenation via the cork is guff. The main benefit for me is that these eliminate the chance of TCA taint which I’m pretty poor at spotting, and would in such cases put it down to the wine being not very pleasant for intangible reasons ! It also helps if a bottle’s been taken with a picnic and nobody remembered to bring a corkscrew
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This is very old now, but still relevant and interesting, I think:
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One big plus for screwcaps, which experience has just brought to my attention again, is that it’s an awful lot easier to put open bottles back in the fridge! From that point of view they may be more useful for white wines!
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I have a preference for corks so have noticed that often an identical wine is available on the continent with a cork whereas in the UK it is sold with a screw-cap. That leads me to think the UK is aiming at a different market, one that wants to grab a bottle and open it that evening for its effect, rather than one that will take the time to trim the foil, remove the cork and savour the wine.
We are all aware that corks will age and can leak but I have had a few screw-cap bottles leak as well. They were stored lying on their side and I assume that the acid in the wine got through to the cap and reacted with it.
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In my opinion, every wine should be under screw cap. Better consistency, lower cost. Producers have the same (or greater) control over OTR if that’s what’s desired.
There are arguments that if we stopped using cork then cork farms which encourage biodiversity would be cut down…but that doesn’t seem like an inevitable outcome. Certainly not something that has to happen. Screwcap are made from recycled material and can themselves be recycled (in the UK at least).
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That may be your thought, but I cannot agree with your conclusion that people opening screw-capped wines cannot savour the wine therein.
In this country there were two main drivers for screw caps - supermarkets who didn’t want ‘corked’ wines returned to them, and bars/restaurants who did not want to train staff how to remove a cork, or have them take the time to do so.
I am pleased to see the increasing use of screw-caps.
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