Just a quick english post for those guys of the EWBC that are putting togheter a bunch of posts about wine closures.
This is how I see it:
- plastic cork: I’ve been there, I’ve done that. It’s crap. Honestly, they are not good. They let too much 02 into the wine, the wine gets oxidated and ruined. Plus, they’re hugly and difficult to extract, and they’re plastic.
- natural cork: it’s nice, everyone agrees with that. It feels allright, the proper thing to use for wine. Except for the TCA issue. It’ll never be 100 % taint free, and sometimes, despite what cork industries say, the average percentage of faulty corks could be very high: 2-3 or more %. Plus, you need a lot of trees, the cork take time to form on the tree and they can’t be enough for all the wine produced in the world. Do you really think that all wines made in the world deserve natural cork? I can’t imagine a very precious, old, expensive bottle corked with anything else than cork. But all the rest, 98% (or more) of the wine in world can and must be drunk within 5 yrs maximun. So, what’s the point.
- screwcap: I think it’s clever, I think it’s nice, and I think it’s perfect for most of the wines (that 98% I was on about). Problem is, in countries like Italy people associate that closure with the very cheap plunk that you buy at the supermarket for 1,5 euros. Hence, we have to explain that that’s not the case. It takes money and time to do so and it has to be done by groups of winemakers and expecially by leaders. Can you fin a group of winemakers that is able to work togheter in Italy? If you do, tell me who they are please, I’ll send them a bottle of wine.
- glass closure: yes, they’re nice, but what’s the difference with screwcaps in the end? They are just much more expensive, and in the end that stuff that seals the closure to the bottle has to be plastic too. So, what’s the point?
That’s it. I would use screwcaps for 80% of my wines if I could (the morellino di scansano DOCG, even the cheap ones, must be bottled under cork, it’s the law) and if I was more courageous (people will say that the wines look cheap: “yes,I know, your wine is as good as it was last year, but a customer of mine the other day complained….”)
This is the EWBC post the collects this issue.
Thanks Justine for letting us know about the DOCG regulations on closures. I wasn’t aware that it was illegal in your neck of the woods, although I am not surprised. Out of curiosity, from your perspective, why the contention between winemakers of your end goal is the same?
Unfortunately it wasn’t Justine, she’s in UK with kids for school. It’s lonely husband here that wrote that, and he has to be honest here: I don’t understand your question.
Sorry Gianpaolo
I was under the impression that Justine covered the English side of the blog. My question was referring to your comment about screwcaps, “It takes money and time to do so and it has to be done by groups of winemakers and expecially by leaders. Can you fin a group of winemakers that is able to work togheter in Italy?” Why the contention among groups of winemakers, or leaders, if your primary goal is the same; meaning, if your primary goal is use screwcaps legally, why are Italians not rallying together to accomplish this? What is holding them back?
@Gabriella: “What is holding them back?”
The answer is: we are Italians. Italians are very bad at working together, very good at beeing individualist. That’s why we’re not ruling the world
Dear Gianpaolo,
on our Dolcetto we ended up using Nomacorc Classic as they are easy to extract and do oxigen the wine a little: we found that feature to be good for a wine developed [without wood barrel in the process] to be fresh, fruity and ready to drink the spring just following the grape harvest. Obviously, with no TCA issue to deal with.
But I don’t disagree with you when you say that such a closure will not lead to the same result if applied on other varieties, although it can’t be generally said that they are “crap”.
Tomaso
I feel good to read your blog on the industrial suppliments
The METAL CLOSURES PVT LTD is one of the huge suppliers of metal cap,metal closures