Screw-Caps Better Than Corks for Wine

Corks are a less-than-perfect solution for keeping wine fresh. They can dry out, letting in corrupting oxygen. They may suffer from “cork taint,” in which 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, or “TCA,” adds a wet dog smell to the wine. They’ll often shred apart in the bottle, which is annoying. The solution? Store all wine in the vacuum of space.

Or you could do what vinter Michel Laroche did, and experiment with using screw-off caps.

So in 2002 he took action. He set up an alternative bottling line and bottled three percent of his production under screwcaps. He bottled the same day and from the same vats. He brought four of his wines that run the gamut of his line for us to taste, with a bottle under each closure.
The difference was shocking. With screwcap, the 2002 Chablis St. Martin (about $25; find this wine) was still a youthful, flinty Chablis without a whole lot of intrigue but solid and fresh. The cork closure for the same wine, by contrast, was older tasting with more signs of oxidation. Everyone save one person at the tasting preferred the screwcap.

I’m reminded of Oskar Blues‘ decision to distribute their beer in plastic-lined aluminum cans, despite the craft brewing standard brown bottle, simply because they think the can is a better delivery mechanism. (And it very well may be.) You have to ask: what is a cork bringing to the wine’s flavor besides tradition?

Bringing closure? A screwcap-cork showdown [DrVino.com]