Cork versus stelvin closures

Q:

Q: WE HAVE had visitors from overseas who can’t believe we drink wine out of twist top style bottles. I try to assure them the wine is perfectly good (in fact excellent) and more protected from corking than from conventionally corked bottles but they argue. What do the experts think?

Our expert is Evan Mitchell, co-author of Drinking your own words. The psychology of wine..

A: What’s known as the ‘corking’ or ‘cork tainting’ of a wine occurs when a chemical compound known as trichloroanisole (TCA) infects the cork and then taints the wine, giving it a characteristic, very unpleasant ‘wet dog’ or ‘mouldy newspaper’ smell and a flat, ungiving flavour that lacks fruit and any complexity or depth and in extreme cases can be very unpleasant.

When it comes to cases of cork taint, you should trust your nose even more than your palate – often it smells worse than it tastes. Even a novice can detect when a cork is badly tainted.

The estimates as to what extent TCA affects wine vary enormously. The lowest are at around 5% while others would say as high as 15%. These estimates can also vary according to the interests concerned – pro-cork people tend to under estimate, while the pro-screw top people tend to argue higher.

It is unarguable however that there is a significant percentage of wines with cork closures that are affected by TCA.

The biggest problem for the wine industry is not so much those wines that are very badly affected, because it is so obvious when it happens and a consumer is likely to just order another bottle.

A bigger problem and a reason why the industry is so avidly pursuing alternative forms of bottle closures such as the screw top seal is wines that are only slightly corked. Because they tend to taste flat or ungiving, consumers are more likely to assume that the wine concerned is just not to their liking – and are never going to try it again.

On the point about wine closures, a lot of wine writers and wine makers have taken the line that the screw top will address the corking problem.

There is resistance to this on many grounds, including tradition, because there hasn’t been sufficient time for longitudinal studies to see how this type of closure will affect reds that rely on bottle age for their character. There is also a vested interest in retaining corks in the European Union because Portugal is the world’s major cork producer.

On the other hand many producers are happy to use the screw top on wines that are designed to be drunk young and it has totally eliminated the problem of corking.

A book by George M Taber called To cork or not to cork looks at all of the implications and pros and cons of the various closures.

He makes the very apposite point that nobody – even to this day – knows exactly what processes are actually involved in the successful ageing wines. We’re not sure whether it’s oxidation, hence you want a semi-permeable membrane like a cork, while those on the screw top side maintain that it is aged primarily by reduction.

They are actually calling the debate the ‘closure wars’ because it has taken on the dimension and polarising quality of the arguments about climate change or similar.

Most who have gone the screw top route have truly done so for the benefits of the consumers.

However there are so many associations between wine with religion, ceremony and ritual that people feel are undermined by ‘ripping off the top like a bottle of Fanta’ to which many people object.

So watch this space to see what happens next and remember, when it comes to wine – go with your nose.

Slainté!

Where to find out more

Evan’s book, Drinking your own words. The psychology of wine is available from independent bookstores, fine wine stores and winery cellar doors nationally, RRP $14.95.

You can also visit his wine, food and general bon vivantery website at www.the secretworkdof.com