|
By Karl H. Kazaks
Not much is keeping you from enjoying a bottle of Virginia wine.
Not much at all: just a foil capsule and cork or a screwcap top.
Screwcap closures are becoming increasingly common on wines from Virginia and throughout the world, and their appearance on wine bottles hasn't escaped notice.
Advocates of the closure tout it as the best solution for eliminating the scourge of corked wine—wine spoiled by contaminated cork that in mild cases dulls a wine's brightness and in extreme cases imparts unattractive odors and flavors of mold and wet cardboard.
Beyond that, they say, screwcaps are also superior to cork in their ability to keep wines—particularly white wines and rosés that are meant to be consumed young—fresh, lively and fruity.
Traditionalists say the problem of corked wine is overstated. Screwtops eliminate some of the romance and appeal of fine wine, they say, and have problems of their own—not the least of which is they impart the wrong image.
Screwtops have so long been associated with poor quality jug wine that using them on the fine wines made in Virginia would give consumers the wrong message, they argue.
So who's right?
Even promoters of screwcaps acknowledge that, when cork taint and other problems associated with defective corks like oxidation and leakage are absent, cork is an excellent bottle closure.
"When a cork is in good shape and not cork-tainted, it's the ultimate closure," says Jennifer McCloud of Chrysalis Vineyards, which currently bottles about 40 percent of its annual production under screwcap. "It's very flexible, so it adheres to the sides of a bottle and makes a complete seal."
Shep Rouse, of Rockbridge Vineyard, bottles 60 percent of his annual production under screwcap.
"A perfect cork works well," he says. "But when you're using cork you're taking a risk that it won't be perfect."
"The problem with corks is [that] as a winemaker you don't know what consumers will find when they open one of your bottles," says Stephen Barnard, winemaker at Keswick Vineyards. "You don't want them to open a tainted bottle and never try your wines again because they think the problem's with your wine and not the cork."
There are different degrees of corked, from extremely corked where the nose and palate are so affected that everyone notices, to in-between levels that not all wine drinkers may identify as corked. Regardless, the nose and flavors of the wine are not what the winemaker intended.
"With TCA [2,4,6-trichloroanisole—the primary component linked to corked wines] it's not as simple as a wine is corked or it isn't," says Chrysalis' McCloud.
"It's a matter of degrees, depending on the presence of TCA. You may not get the musty, moldy aromas immediately identifiable as a corked wine, but you may get a deadening of fruit."
Given that one of the first signs of a corked wine is the absence of fresh fruit characteristics, it's no surprise that the wines most commonly bottled under screwcap are those whose enjoyment depends on fresh, fruity characteristics. Screwcaps, says Rockbridge's Rouse, are really well-suited to light and fruity white wines.
White Hall Vineyards bottles most of its early-drinking wines with screwcaps, thanks to a trial owner Tony Champ performed a few years ago.
"We did an experiment—as controlled an experiment as is possible," Champ says.
"We bottled the same wine—same vintage, bottled at the same time, really identical wines—with both cork and screwcap. The only difference was the closure."
A year later, he and others sampled bottles with the two closures. The screwcap won out.
"The wine with the screwcap was much fresher, livelier. You could really tell the difference." White Hall has since bottled an increasing percentage of its production with screwcaps.
At Chrysalis, the wines bottled with screwcaps are also the early-drinking wines.
"They're wines most likely to be consumed within the first year or two of bottling," McCloud says. "They're not meant to be pondered, not meant to be pontificated over. They're fun, fruity wines to enjoy."
Al Kellert of Gray Ghost Vineyards and Winery understands the case for using screwcaps on early-drinking wines, but says that the situation changes with wines that benefit from being laid down for a while.
"I wouldn't argue with anyone using screwcaps on wines meant to be consumed young," he says. "But I wouldn't try to age a wine bottled with screwcaps."
Kellert is not the only one concerned that screwcaps don't allow wines to age in the same way or at the same pace as cork. For wines that deteriorate with age—the fresh, fruity early drinkers—the protection against aging provided by screwcaps is an advantage.
But for wines that do well and even improve with a few years of bottle age—particularly medium- to full-bodied, tannic red wines—screwcaps are seen to be a disadvantage. It's thought by some—though disputed by others—that corks allow a minute amount of oxygen to penetrate into the bottle—perhaps by diffusing through the cells of the cork itself—and improve age-worthy wines.
Even at Chrysalis, where some 40 percent of the wines produced are closed with screwcaps, the situation changes with other vintages.
"We won't use screwcaps with our reserve reds, which are best with a little bottle age. I don't think there's sufficient research that wines age as well under screwcaps as they do under cork," McCloud says.
There is even concern that screwcaps, while eliminating the risk of cork taint, can lead to other aroma problems. Kellert says that over time he has detected wines closed with screwcaps that have a hydrogen sulfur smell.
Rockbridge's Rouse agrees that some wines do develop a reductive, rotten egg smell under the screwcap.
"You can remove the smell by sterile filtration," says Rouse. "But I'd hate to do that. It'd take away a lot of the character of the wine." He notes that decanting also eliminates the unpleasant aroma.
Kellert uses natural cork on his entire line of wines at Gray Ghost.
"Our philosophy is [that] when you're producing a premium wine, don't cheap out on the closure," he says. "Our customers look at natural cork as a sign of a premium wine. The cork reinforces the message that our product is a premium product."
Fred Sylvester, of White Rock Vineyards, is a self-described traditionalist who is almost committed to cork.
"To us, it's the presentation difference," he says. "I enjoy the ceremony of opening a bottle of wine sealed with natural cork. We would lose that by going to screwtops."
Being a small winery—White Rock produces a little more than 1000 cases of wine annually—Sylvester bottles all his wine by hand, with a pneumatic bottler, which allows him to visually inspect each cork that goes into a bottle. If a suspect cork is found, it isn't used.
"As far as we're concerned, unless something drastically changes, we will always use corks," he says.
As for TCA taint, cork advocates think the problem is exaggerated.
"Cork problems, I think, are overstated," says Grey Ghost's Kellert. "What we see is about one in 1,000 bottles are corked."
Sylvester agrees, estimating cork to negatively impact less than one percent of his production.
But Keswick's Barnard has had a different experience.
"We had major problems with cork taint," he says. "Over five percent of our bottles were being spoiled, and we were using pretty much one of the most expensive corks. Also, corks were drying out, crumbling, making it difficult to extract."
To remedy the situation, Keswick turned to Diam corks, made from agglomerated cork particles that are treated with a highly pressurized carbon dioxide that moves like a gas into cork but acts like a liquid in removing contaminants.
Then there are the environmental arguments for using one type of closure rather than another. Some say natural corks are better for the environment, because they are a renewable resource—the dead bark from cork oak trees.
Others disagree.
"A screwcap acts as both cork and capsule," says Chrysalis's McCloud. "The amount of energy it takes to process it is probably considerably less than harvesting and sanitizing a cork, shipping it overseas, and manufacturing a foil capsule. It's okay to save resources, especially when you're not sacrificing quality."
The answer may be what Virginia Tech oenologist Bruce Zoecklein has called designer closures—the use of a specific closure selected for a specific wine type and style.
The argument over the merits of each type of closure is likely to persist. Both sides meet, however, when it comes to describing how they determine which closure to use.
Says Rockbridge's Rouse, "The bottom line is we do our best to put the best wine in bottles for our customers."
Karl H. Kazaks is a Floyd-based freelance writer and sommelier.
|
