Hello Lovely People… it’s Wednesday and that (usually) means wine. It’s very fun for me, you see, to get to wear different hats and use different facets of my mind. The fantasy author in me gets to dream big, while the more grounded me gets to do a wine or travel blog and then there’s the musical side and she straddles the two: the dreamer and the every day mortal. As I say, it’s good. I truly love my life, especially the last couple of years, but THAT is whole ‘nother blog post.
As one can see from the title of this blog, here’s the question, which is better the Corkscrew or the Screwtop? Spoiler alert, honestly? These days? It’s totally up to YOU! Remember when I told you on a previous Wine on Wednesday that a wine bottle could be $5 and if YOU liked it then it was a good wine? Whereas a $500 bottle that you didn’t like is just simply crappy wine? It’s kind of the same thing here. Let me explain.
Cork comes from the cork oak tree. Now, before my fellow environmentalists get up in arms on taking the trees, let me clarify. Corks are truly a renewable resource. Once the oak tree is about twenty-five years old, you can harvest the bark every nine to ten years. The corks are punched out of the thick bark. Harvesting the bark is actually good for the tree as it aids in the uptake of carbon dioxide, so long as the bark is not harvested when the tree is too young and so long as the bark is not harvested more than the every nine to ten years. Honestly, it’s in the arborist’s best interests to take good care of their trees which live two hundred years plus and whose cork is extremely profitable to sell. Cork oaks are very drought tolerant and take very little in the way of nutrients from the soil. This makes them a very low maintenance crop (comparetively) once established.
Cork is preferred by wine makers who craft wines designed to age because it is an organic and permeable substrate. It allows the wine to very subtly breathe over the years by just receiving the barest whiff of oxygen over time. This means that the wine will change bit by bit, becoming at once more mellow and more complex over the years. Tannins will soften and the wine will simultaneously become more approachable and more interesting as time goes by.
Also, with corks, there is the tradition, the ceremony of the opening of the cork, the tasting of the wine, which one does not receive from a screw top. Let me break that down, because I find some people do not understand why we taste a bottle in the restaurant. It is NOT as some might believe to see if one LIKES the wine. No, the establishment is allowing you to be a part of the quality control process when you purchase a bottle. It doesn’t matter if you care for the wine or not. Regardless in that case, you are on the hook for the bottle. No, you are being allowed the opportunity to ascertain whether the bottle is “corked” or not. What is “corked” you ask? Good question. A corked bottle is the downside of using cork. The very organic and permeable nature of cork which makes it so ideal for aging wines is also its Achilles heel. Corks can be dry, crumbly, and may naturally have holes or gaps which do not stand up over time (sometimes it happens very quickly). In days gone by the extra oxygen allowed in was the culprit for a wine to have gone bad. It will taste like vinegar and burn your throat. However these days it is more likely a combination of the extra oxygen and the remnants of sanitation compounds which result in a chemical compound called TCA ( trichloroansole). The results smell musty and the wine will be flat. For me the best way to describe it is like wet dog. One of my former coworkers said it tasted like ass, that, I could not confirm. Not my forte. If you have a wine that tastes like vinegar or wet cardboard (or God forbid, ass) then you absolutely can refuse the bottle and you should be brought a new bottle to sample. Now, if the wine tastes of cherries and you hoped for citrus, well, there my friend you are out of luck. If you don’t care for the wine, but there is nothing wrong with the wine then you are obligated to purchase the bottle regardless.
So there we have the quick and dirty on corks, something near and dear to the wine world and its snobs for centuries, even millennia. Where then do screwtops come in? What trailer trash, low brow, reject of society introduced that monstrosity to the wine world. Well, funny story, that is actually an innovation of…drum roll please…the French. Cue gasps. I know, I know, how could it be the French? They are the group voted most likely to turn their collective noses up at a screwtop wine. What can I say? They also know their wines and in the late 1950’s a French company patented the screwtop. It’s really quite a brilliant innovation. It keeps the wine exactly as it was bottled. There is no worry about corked wines or spoilage. Also, super bonus, if you forget a corkscrew on your picnic, no problem! Crack that baby open.
Screwtops have received the bum, and unfair, rap of belonging to wines which are less expensive and somehow of an inferior quality. Winemakers have experimented with this, aging some bottles with corks and the same number with screwtops. The finding again and again is that if you are looking for that elusive magical aging and development in a wine then you need a cork. A good one. However, if you are simply looking to enjoy a good quality wine within the year (and that’s most of us) then a screwtop is just dandy, even preferred. By the way, if a sommelier lets you taste a screwtop wine before enjoying at a restaurant either they are NOT a sommelier or they are just being super sweet. A screwtop wine has no cork ergo it cannot be “corked” ergo you get what you get and don’t have a fit if you do not like it.
One last plug for the screwtop, it is also a good bet environmentally as it will be made of metal that and the glass of the bottle are both recyclable. You do not need to feel guilty about your carbon footprint there. Where you do need to worry are the artificial corks and plastic faux “foils”…however, that is another blog for another day.
If anyone has any questions or wine recommendation please leave them in the comments and help all us fellow wine lovers out! Have great day!!! Slainte!
Very educational!
THANK YOU!!!