Zork closure

Sounds like a reasonable response to the TCA issue...whaddya think, Guys?

%^)

IMHO, the Zork promises a "have your cake and eat it, too" solution to everybody ... nice aesthetics, "romance (i.e. "pop")", TCA-proof, and easy to reseal the bottle ... and from what little commentary there has finally been as we reach page six of this discussion, it appears the Zork would do well in a long/longer term storage situation ... I have been a Stelvin fan since I first tried it and while I still like it, methinks I would much prefer the Zork to the Stelvin and CERTAINLY more than stupid corks that ruin a lot of my wine ...

The overall discussion has been very interesting and I'm glad I asked the question ... it will also lend itself to some interesting discussions with wine-makers I know and will be visiting during our upcoming vacation ...

Thank you all !

Clink !

%^)

%^)

Hey David !

Maybe "give me screwcaps or Zork or give me death" ?

Clink !

%^)

Well, Sam, I do wonder whether you've had the good ones. Unless you don't like cooler-climate SBL, of course, which may be the case. I love them.

Oliver, Consider yourself mocked! I think that you are correct. The cool climate SB juice just doesn't work on my palate. I do like the stuff from NZ and elsewhere, so it's not the grape itself that turns me off. I am open to suggestions if you have a favorite Sancerre to recommend.

Kermit's Hippolyte Reverdy used to be good, Andre Neveu, Cotat; I'm not up on French wines, though, I would ask your best local retailer.

If you like NZ sauvignon, a good Sancerre should have much less of that vegetal/gooseberry character, so I'm not sure why you wouldn't like Loire SBLs. I mostly drink whites from the Alto Adige, where they make some very Pouilly-ish wines.

I don't think you can mock someone for liking one of the world standards; you can differ with them, though.

[i

IMHO, the Zork promises a "have your cake and eat it, too" solution to everybody ... nice aesthetics, "romance (i.e. "pop")", TCA-proof, and easy to reseal the bottle ..

Have you seen a Zork closed bottle? Ugly plastic knob sitting on top of it? I don't it has any aesthetics, and neither do I think making a 'pop' noise when opening a wine shows any class. And it is fiddly to open.

I stand by my first take that is a stupid useless object whose only redeeming feature is that it is not a cork.

[David M. Bueker]

%^)

Hey David !

Maybe "give me screwcaps or Zork or give me death" ?

Clink !

%^)

If you give me Zork it could be death. I might be eaten by a grue. I could never use a closure called Zork. I would laugh so much I would spill my wine. Too many old associations. Give it another name though and I might try it.

[James Roscoe]

Have you seen a Zork closed bottle? Ugly plastic knob sitting on top of it? I don't it has any aesthetics, and neither do I think making a 'pop' noise when opening a wine shows any class. And it is fiddly to open.

I stand by my first take that is a stupid useless object whose only redeeming feature is that it is not a cork.

Peter - It is by far the easiest closure to open that I have encountered. Many of the screw caps require a pair of plyers to release the top, and of course corks are notoriously difficult at times. I certainly can see where the zork might have its place as closure. I remain a skeptic on long-term aging though.
Cheers!
James

[David M. Bueker]

Many of the screw caps require a pair of plyers to release the top, and of course corks are notoriously difficult at times.
Cheers!
James

I have never, and I mean never seen anything like that happen, and I have been through well over a hundred screw capped bottles.

Now stuck corks are another matter. I have shattered 3 bottles of wine trying to extract a stuck cork.

[James Roscoe]

I have never, and I mean never seen anything like that happen, and I have been through well over a hundred screw capped bottles.
Now stuck corks are another matter. I have shattered 3 bottles of wine trying to extract a stuck cork.

David,
Maybe I'm a whimp. Maybe I buy cheap wines with cheap screw cap closures. I can tell you that it's happened three times that I can recall, and at least two times where I've rescued my wife who was using plyers and I was able to open the bottle. I will tell you ALL the bottles were under $10, probably under $8 if I had to guess, and either German, Aussie, or NZ white wines. All were bought at my BAWS. All were cold, some had been in the freezer and there may have been ice involved. It does happen. I'll bet it's mostly cheap closures or other odd circumstances. I stick with my opinion that the zork has a place in the future of closures. Anything so that the smell of mildew doen't ever waft from another bottle. - Cheers! James

I don't think you can mock someone for liking one of the world standards; you can differ with them, though.

Oliver, I mock that which I don't understand. It makes me feel better about myself. "Differing" would actually require some thought on my part. Thinking and reasoning take way too much time and effort. Therefore, I chose to mock. Give mockery a try. (Note: I'm only kidding!)

Thanks for the recommendations. If memory serves I have tried a Cotat. I will seek out the Reverdy and the Neveu.

FWIW:

There's a lot of folks on this thread talking about the "pop" sound a cork makes when it's pulled from the bottle.

Well, you might treasure that sound, but it's interesting that all professional sommelier training emphasizes that proper service means NOT making that popping sound! It's considered unprofessional. And downright tacky.

Professional tableside service insists on gently easing the cork out of the bottle, quietly. Even with Champagne and sparkling wines, the emphasis is on not making the pop. The mark of a particularly well trained sommelier is getting that cork out of that bubbly without a sound.

Puzzles me why people fixate so much on a sound anyway, tell the truth. Signifies nothing...except perhaps that the seal was intact. But the wine will tell you whether that was so, and much better than the pop of a cork could.

This whole 'romance of the cork' thing is kind of ridiculous, isn't it? I mean, golly, it's sorta like fetishizing things----like maybe (for us sexist pig males, at least) emphazising how hot the lingerie is, and forgetting to look at the body beneath it. When the hubba hubba is more for the silk than the flesh, I think you have your prirorities out of order.

When you get so turned on by a cork that you become emotionally attached to it, maybe the reason you drink wine has irrevocably changed.

There are people who can help you with that, by the way.

[James Roscoe]

Oliver, I mock that which I don't understand. It makes me feel better about myself. "Differing" would actually require some thought on my part. Thinking and reasoning take way too much time and effort. Therefore, I chose to mock. Give mockery a try.

I thought this board was all about learning to mock until you graduated to serious mocking and could join the boys at Wine Thereapy. Now they have mocking down to a science. We're just amatuers on this board.

[Robin Garr]

I can tell you that it's happened three times that I can recall, and at least two times where I've rescued my wife who was using plyers and I was able to open the bottle.

You've offered a lot of reasonable variables, James ... I wonder if some of your sticky screwcaps might have been other brands than the Stelvin that seems to dominate the fine-wine screwcap market.

But next time, try a trick that I learned from some Austrian sommeliers - it's the same principle as the technique for easing out a Champagne cork without an explosion:

1. Hold the cap tightly in one hand, and hold it still.

2. Twist the bottle.

This always works for me, and I assume it has to do with putting the action on the portion with the larger circumference, an analogy to the lever effect.

I have never, and I mean never seen anything like that happen, and I have been through well over a hundred screw capped bottles.
Now stuck corks are another matter. I have shattered 3 bottles of wine trying to extract a stuck cork.

David,
Maybe I'm a whimp. Maybe I buy cheap wines with cheap screw cap closures. I can tell you that it's happened three times that I can recall, and at least two times where I've rescued my wife who was using plyers and I was able to open the bottle. I will tell you ALL the bottles were under $10, probably under $8 if I had to guess, and either German, Aussie, or NZ white wines. All were bought at my BAWS. All were cold, some had been in the freezer and there may have been ice involved. It does happen. I'll bet it's mostly cheap closures or other odd circumstances. I stick with my opinion that the zork has a place in the future of closures. Anything so that the smell of mildew doen't ever waft from another bottle. - Cheers! James

Not that I'm bringing screw caps again, but I have cut a thumb on those, uh...things.

It is a sign of how conservative wine drinkers are that they regard the screw cap with trepidation, as if it were a cutting-edge technology. It's as if a winemaker was using a hand-pump and looked nervously at the new-fangled electronic one someone was trying to sell him.

That said, I have had one problem with a small producer who used screwcaps on one of his wines; the bottom ring wasn't crimped tightly enough onto the bottle, which meant that in a few cases the cap just turned without cracking the seal. I am sure that everyone will work out the bugs shortly.

That we have gotten inured to a 5-10% failure rate is fascinating.

Many of the screw caps require a pair of plyers to release the top, and of course corks are notoriously difficult at times.

James, I have had that happen to me on a couple of occasions. One required pliers, the other required a tube cutter because the cap would not break from the rim and whole thing was spinning (as described by Oliver). However, I cannot count how many corks I have broken, stripped, or pushed into the bottle. I now seek out wines with screw cap closures for near term drinking. I have also accidently taken a cork screw to a few screw caps over the years.

Many of the screw caps require a pair of plyers to release the top, and of course corks are notoriously difficult at times.

James, I have had that happen to me on a couple of occasions. One required pliers, the other required a tube cutter because the cap would not break from the rim and whole thing was spinning (as described by Oliver). However, I cannot count how many corks I have broken, stripped, or pushed into the bottle. I now seek out wines with screw cap closures for near term drinking. I have also accidently taken a cork screw to a few screw caps over the years.

Sam: You can use the Robin Garr Technique when you have that problem. This technique was perfected during the early days of screwcapped wines while Robin was standing in a dark room. It's very simple: just grunt really hard and force your corkscrew right through the top of the screw cap!!! That gives you leverage on the cap so you can screw it off easier. And if that doesn't work, you have a nice hole in the top of the screwcap to pour your wine through. Slowly.

[Robin Garr]

You can use the Robin Garr Technique when you have that problem. This technique was perfected during the early days of screwcapped wines while Robin was standing in a dark room. It's very simple: just grunt really hard and force your corkscrew right through the top of the screw cap!!! That gives you leverage on the cap so you can screw it off easier. And if that doesn't work, you have a nice hole in the top of the screwcap to pour your wine through. Slowly.

Close, but no cigarillo! What I actually did was perform a <i>bris</i> on a Stelvin by bearing down really hard and cutting off the entire end with a foilcutter, thinking I was working on a capsule, whereupon I burst out, "Where in the hell is the cork!"

Bear in mind that Pecheney intentionally built the thing to resemble a traditional capsule. I say it's their fault.

Close, but no cigarillo! What I actually did was perform a bris on a Stelvin by bearing down really hard and cutting off the entire end with a foilcutter, thinking I was working on a capsule, whereupon I burst out, "Where in the hell is the cork!"

Bear in mind that Pecheney intentionally built the thing to resemble a traditional capsule. I say it's their fault.

LOL!!! Just remember that it is a poor wine opener who blames his producer!

I corkscrewed my screwcaps with a Rabbit style lever-pull, and was totally oblivious to it the first time. Our guests even poured through the little hole without complaint during the couple of minutes it took me to get a clue. It's more difficult to make that mistake with the waiter's corkscrew that I now employ.

Randall Grahm once told me that the only complaints he'd had from switching to screwcaps were from people who had tried to open them with a cork-screw. I didn't believe him, but now I do, and it sounds like most of those customers were from this board...

I didn't believe him, but now I do, and it sounds like most of those customers were from this board...

Oliver, I think I'm being mocked.

DISCLAIMER: The following is meant to be taken with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

The author of the following post disavows any and all connection to or responsibility for all serious treatments, subsequent harsh posts, off hand remarks and/or negative feelings that may or may not arise from the items to follow regarding a certain controversial wine enclosure or any of those same items directed toward the author of this post.

This is a joke and it is only a joke.

Thank you.

That said, I have had one problem with a small producer who used screwcaps on one of his wines; the bottom ring wasn't crimped tightly enough onto the bottle, which meant that in a few cases the cap just turned without cracking the seal. I am sure that everyone will work out the bugs shortly.

Hm.

Sure hope we aren't on this same thread 300 years from now bemoaning the screw cap and it's inherent manufacturing defects.

That we have gotten inured to a 5-10% failure rate is fascinating.

Here's something that may spark an interest...it's not wine but interesting nonetheless:

"From the supplier: Linton, Matysiak & Wilkes, Inc has released the results of their study on new product introductions in the retail grocery industry. The study reviewed 1,935 new products from the top 20 food companies to determine overall product mortality, new item mortality, line extension mortality, line extension to new item ratios, regional breakdowns, and national introductions. The study found that the failure rate for new product introduction in the sector is 70% to 80% and that strategic marketing can increase new product success rate."


Hm.

Source: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00097 ... e&n=551440

"The study found that the failure rate for new product introduction in the sector is 70% to 80%."

Tim, did you notice the footnote that showed that the failure rate for new product introductions was significantly higher for those products packaged under cork than it was for products packaged under screwcap?

In fact, one of the major "strategic marketing" reccos reads:

"Avoid cork in new product packaging." That recco is worth the six bucks right there. :-)

Regards, Bob

PS: Please see the Disclaimer in the immediately preceding Message Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 5:52 pm.

"The study found that the failure rate for new product introduction in the sector is 70% to 80%."

Tim, did you notice the footnote that showed that the failure rate for new product introductions was significantly higher for those products packaged under cork than it was for products packaged under screwcap?

In fact, one of the major "strategic marketing" reccos reads:

"Avoid cork in new product packaging." That recco is worth the six bucks right there.

Regards, Bob

PS: Please see the Disclaimer in the immediately preceding Message Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 5:52 pm.

Musta missed it.

Bifocals, you see.

Prolly mine saw something that wasn't there, Tim.