Zork closure

[Robin Garr]

To wit:

NATURAL CORK, CORKINESS, SYNTHETICS & SCREW CAPS
Jordan P. Ross

Hey, Tim ... for future reference, although this is not a lecture, and not a formal Law of the Forum, I generally advise against cross-pasting copyright material in full. Mostly because it has the small potential to get me in trouble, but also because it's just more efficient for everyone to reference long copyright citations with an excerpt or brief summary and a hotlink to the full text.

No need to do anything now - edit or delete or what have you. But for future reference, I'll be in your debt if you'll keep this principle in mind.

To wit:

NATURAL CORK, CORKINESS, SYNTHETICS & SCREW CAPS
Jordan P. Ross

Hey, Tim ... for future reference, although this is not a lecture, and not a formal Law of the Forum, I generally advise against cross-pasting copyright material in full. Mostly because it has the small potential to get me in trouble, but also because it's just more efficient for everyone to reference long copyright citations with an excerpt or brief summary and a hotlink to the full text.

No need to do anything now - edit or delete or what have you. But for future reference, I'll be in your debt if you'll keep this principle in mind.

Glad to.

I apologize...new guy, ya know


[I have edited same]

With all due respect, the vast majority of wine drinkers [here or elsewhere] are opposed to screw caps.

Is there any evidence you can provide to support this fact?

I offer you a recentWLDG poll <--click that suggests otherwise. Here you will see that 48% of over 2250 wine drinkers here (that voted) are quite ready for screwcaps (40% against, 9% undecided - roundoff makes the numbers not add up to 100%).

With all due respect, the vast majority of wine drinkers [here or elsewhere] are opposed to screw caps.

Is there any evidence you can provide to support this fact?

Well...have you seen a huge turn-over in wine enclosers...cork [or its synthetic cousin] to screw caps...on your local store/wine merchant shelves?

That, my friend, is the telling of the tale.

I offer you a recentWLDG poll <--click that suggests otherwise. Here you will see that 48% of over 2250 wine drinkers here (that voted) are quite ready for screwcaps (40% against, 9% undecided - roundoff makes the numbers not add up to 100%).

And the demographic was...?

48%? Now that would be less than half, if my math is correct. Hardly a majority unless we're electing a certain republican president, of course ...not that I'm bitter.

You can parade all the numbers you'd like, but the bottom line is wine is still being corked, not screw capped.

TBH, that is proof enough for me that this whole screw cap thing is a charade.

With all due respect, the vast majority of wine drinkers [here or elsewhere] are opposed to screw caps. Serious collectors, specifically. If this were not the case, every store's wine section in America would be filled to capacity with screw capped wine.

Your statement is unsupported.

Part of the difficulty in implementing 'screwcaps everywhere' is the cost of altering the bottling lines. In re what wine drinkers want... well, wine drinkers want good wine; the fact that tree bark stoppers were once used to keep rats out of the bottles is not really relevant.

[BTW, anything that spoils is considered a perishable...just so ya know]

Everything spoils eventually, you know.

Secondly, here is an article you might find interesting. It was written in 2002 by Jordan P. Ross and appears on the EnologyInternational.com website.

That's a pretty ambiguous article. It really offers no new insights, nor new statistics.

In fact, he says that nothing much more than 'the romance of cork' is what keeps people using tree bark fragments to close-up red wines. JPR is willing to see evidence that new closures work just fine.

[ By the way, his article was vague on the machinery, but the truth is that TCA occurs when a chlorine-based rinse interacts with a certain common mold. JPR should know this, if he was really on top of his topic. ]

Anyway, why are you so interested in dissing non-tree bark closures? Is it the 'pop' sound? Or, do you think it's exciting to hold onto a $150 bottle of wine for 20 years and then discover that it was ruined at the moment it was bottled?

Boy, this is a termendous discussion! Our good friend Jamie Goode, over in the UK, has a new book out on this subject which has been very well received.

http://www.wineanorak.com/wine_bottle_closures.htm

With all due respect, the vast majority of wine drinkers [here or elsewhere] are opposed to screw caps. Serious collectors, specifically. If this were not the case, every store's wine section in America would be filled to capacity with screw capped wine.

Tim, obviously where you live in America, that is the case, but America is not everywhere and you do mention 'elsewhere'. Elsewhere is where I come from, where 90% of the wines produced are now bottled with screwcap closures - and not just drink now wines either as there are $60 Cabernet blends, Syrah and Pinot Noir in screwcap too. What's more, the consumers absolutely love them.
Imagine going to the beach in the summer with a bottle of chilled Sauvignon Blanc and forgetting your corkscrew. Doesn't matter, though, when the wine's in screwcap. Most average consumers haven't any clue what TCA or cork taint is, but they love the convenience that screwcaps offer. I see the same convenience with Zork as well, not that Zork will ever capture the market like screwcaps have, however.

[David M. Bueker]

Well...have you seen a huge turn-over in wine enclosers...cork [or its synthetic cousin] to screw caps...on your local store/wine merchant shelves?

In fact I have. I was just at my favorite shop yesterday, and I decided to count the screwcapped "fine" wines: 79. If you go back a year there were maybe 10. No it's not the majority, but the tide is turning and fast. The screwcapped wines came from all sorts of regions, and I saw many people with screwcapped wines in their carts.

Granted this was in no way scientific, but...

Well...have you seen a huge turn-over in wine enclosers...cork [or its synthetic cousin] to screw caps...on your local store/wine merchant shelves?

In fact I have.

I have as well David - to the point that the premium screwcapped wines would be very close to outnumbering cork sealed premium wines.

This is in Australia.

[quote=TimMc]And the demographic was...? [/quote]
The demographic was people that visit this website. The very people you say have a vast majority favoring cork.

48%? Now that would be less than half, if my math is correct. Hardly a majority

We are heading into the land of Plotnicki. Of course it's less than half. You were the one making the claim that "the vast majority of wine drinkers [here or elsewhere] are opposed to screw caps". I simply give to you a poll result of "here" that shows your statement with regards to "here" is completely without any fact. In fact, fewer people "here" support cork than they do screwcaps. You offer nothing. Your entire argument is speculative at best and completely worthless, in my opinion.

Your average wine consumer is not likely to buy a $60 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, or Pinot Noir.

Salute

Every so often the wine lovers here do an inventory of their cellar, it would be interesting to find out how many of their "age-worthy" wines are under screw-cap and other (natural cork, Altec, or synthetic cork).

With all due respect, the vast majority of wine drinkers [here or elsewhere] are opposed to screw caps. Serious collectors, specifically. If this were not the case, every store's wine section in America would be filled to capacity with screw capped wine.


Secondly, here is an article you might find interesting. It was written in 2002 by Jordan P. Ross and appears on the EnologyInternational.com website.

Tim, you're welcome to your view on corks, I know many that still consider them the best closure despite their defaults. But their argument in favour of corks is on their effect on aging wine. I have not come anyone passionate like you in their cause on the grounds that they look nice, or, as the article you refer to says "Aesthetics do matter; any wine lover who enjoys admiring the cork after removing it from the bottle will agree." . I understand and sympathise with concerns on aging, but any wine lover who is gazing dewey eyed at the cork they've just extracted, rather than the wine is just loopy to me.

I'm glad to see an increasing number of screw-cap closed wines on the shelves including some very pleasant organic Cotes-du-Rhone I've just bought.

And I'm sorry you are missing the brilliant NZ Sauvignon Blancs, since they're virtually all screwcap closed.

Once people have tried a screwcapped wine they find how easy it is to open/reseal and taste how clean and fresh the wine is they are happy to come back. I too was anti-screwcap pro-cork once. No more.

Bill, I hate to introduce facts into a good debate on cork versus the world, but I know you'll enjoy the latest Nielsen report on the growth of screw caps: "Sales of Screw-Capped Wine Grow 51 Percent Over 2005."

http://www.winebusiness.com/SalesMarket ... taId=43364

Plenty of room for both sides to tear away at the data, but I found the following section pretty interesting:

ACNielsen also noted that screw caps are found on 40 percent of Australian wines and more than 70 percent of New Zealand wines.

"They are generally a little bit quicker on the uptake than we are," said Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyard, who has moved his entire portfolio to screw cap closures. "Many of the countries adopting screw cap technologies are young industries with fledgling brands. Sometimes it is far easier for a new brand to make the jump to a new technology. I think that established brands worry too much about their customers freaking out with the appearance of a new closure."

***

The reasons for using screw caps rather than traditional cork or synthetic closures are varied, but many producers cite quality control as an overriding factor. "The initial motivation to move to screw caps was my profound unhappiness with the quality of corks at the time," said Grahm. "While there is no doubt that corks have improved in recent years, I have grown to love the screw cap and find it a superior closure to the cork for the following reasons: (1) absolutely no issues of either cork taint or the imparting of non-TCA cork flavors to the wine; (2) more reliable mechanical seal, vis-à-vis issues of leakage, oxygen intrusion, etc.; (3) more airtight seal, which means wines retain greater freshness and are capable of longer aging, and sulfur dioxide use can be minimized."


Regards, Bob

[David M. Bueker]

Every so often the wine lovers here do an inventory of their cellar, it would be interesting to find out how many of their "age-worthy" wines are under screw-cap and other (natural cork, Altec, or synthetic cork).

Two different data points:

1. Since I have been cellaring wine back to 1994, when screwcaps were not generally available, a cellar % would be pretty meaningless.

2. Of the white wines I bought last year (where screwcap is much more prevalent), 34% were under screw cap. That represents a much higher % than what is available to me in the marketplace, but I make a concious choice to buy screw capped wines all other things being equal. I have also bought 30 bottles of screwcapped red in the last year, and none of it from New Zealand (NZ wines are hard to come by in my nexck of the woods). So I making an effort to seek them out as well.

ACNielsen also noted that screw caps are found on 40 percent of Australian wines and more than 70 percent of New Zealand wines.

Not shooting the messenger Bob, but I think you will find the NZ figure being bandied about these days is 90 percent.
There are also two screwcap manufacturers in NZ now. The first, Alvis Screwcaps, was started up by the importers of the Stelvin brand cap who couldn't get reliability of supply to meet demand. They started in September last year and in the 6 months to March had produced 10 million screwcaps.
Now GlobalCap, part of the Italian Guala Closures Group, is also manufacturing screwcaps here.

Cheers,
Sue

Thanks, Bob. This lead-in sentence says it pretty clearly..

"According to groundbreaking new research from ACNielsen, dollar sales of wines under screw cap have grown 51 percent over 2005, three and a half times faster than the 750ml category as a whole."

Seems to be that the public is starting to accept screwcaps at a decent rate.

Thanks for the update, Sue, but careful parsing of the article indicates that the over 70% figure is for New Zealand wines on the US market. Sounds like there may be a higher percentage of New
Zealand wines under screwcap in next year's numbers.

Thanks also for the info on screw cap manufacturing.

Are there any cork holdouts in New Zealand among the wineries? I noticed that Grahm indicates that wines intended for aging will benefit most from screwcap -- certainly against the conventional corky wisdom:

"However, some feel that the screw cap will become more popular for red wines, especially for those designed to be cellared. "I think that screw caps are absolutely brilliant for red wines and in fact make tremendous sense for vins de garde (i.e., wines to be aged at least 10-15 years)," said Grahm. "Screw caps actually slow down the aging process of red wine so that the wine will actually age more gracefully. It is like being able to buy your wine in a magnum or double-magnum but with the convenience of a 750ml. The issue of the potential problem of 'reduction' in red wine under screw caps that reactionary cork proponents bring up is, I believe, nothing more than a red herring.""

Hope you guys are doing well in the depths of your winter. Seems odd to write that with the temps pushing 95F this afternoon.

Regards, Bob

I was struck by another point at the end of the article, Bill -- winemakers are forced to bottle better wine under screwcaps:

ACNielsen found that the average price for a bottle of screw cap wine was $8.64. The relatively high price point does not surprise Sebastiani, whose Mia's Playground and Screw Kappa Napa brands both cost more than $10. "We definitely made it a feature to place our screw cap wines on the upper end [of our portfolio]," said Sebastiani.

"More often than not, those wines under screw cap are better than other comparably priced wines not in screw cap. If you put a bad wine in those bottles, you lose," Sebastiani continued. "Wineries are compelled to put good wines under screw caps." However, many feel that as the screw cap gains more consumer acceptance and more large brands move to using the closure, the average price will begin to fall.

[Assuming you believe there's a relationship between price and quality, of course.]

Regards, Bob

Here is another article I think might be interesting to some people

http://www.winebusiness.com/Html/Monthl ... taId=43368

Salute

Great discussion here, Guys!

I am fully aware that the Aussie/Kiwi markets offer many, many screw capped wines...and very good wines, I might add. But here in California, quite the opposite is the case. In fact, the great majority of less expensive wines are sealed with a synthetic enclosure of some kind, not the dreaded screw cap. It has not been the firestorm of success as was formally predicted.

If the complaint is my offerings are not backed by data, I would argue that a non-scientific poll on a website is not terribly scientific or a valid source of information either. People aren't buying the screw cap as a viable alternative to real cork. In addition, I did offer a website and an article specific to the points I was making. BTW...experience and empirical information is data, too

As to the "average guy" not plunking down $60 bucks for wine, to that I say, cost is not realtive to an appreciation for wine. The average guy simply cannot afford a $60 bottle of wine....screw caps notwithsatnding. Which brings me to my second point: Screw caps are used on the cheaper wine, not the the high-end stuff and there is the crux of my problem with screw caps. It is as if the moderate income wine lover is being relegated to second class status in the wine industry and for a "reward" we are forced to drink wine from a bottle with an enclosure most widely associated with Ripple or MD 20/20. Pardon me, but I am insulted by that. My argument is that if this is such a wonderful enclosure, why aren't all wines capped this way? Reason: Image, aesthetics and, of course, fear that collectors will not buy the wine.

Besides, are we assuming "average guys" don't lay down and age the wines they buy?

Lastly, to hurrah a 51% increase in screw caps does not translate to 51% of all wine being sold. It simply means an increase in production. I would hazard to guess that might mean an overall increase of 15%-20% of all wines on your store shelf. The vast majority of wine is still being corked or synthetically corked.

In short, it seems to me that what I have been saying on this thread and the California Central Coast thread all along holds true: The wine industry simply does not care about the low end wines as much nor are they terribly concerned about incomes which cannot afford their prices. They are courting the wealthy and leaving a very large market in the lurch. We get the screw, they get the cork.

And I fear this will all come back to haunt the wine industry, I assure you.

[However, I figure that whole wine taint issue is a bit overblown, IMHO. One bottle in six cases of wine or 1-2% is really nothing to get all worked up about, as I see it.

True. But when it's your one and only bottle of rare and old wine that you spent a fortune for at auction, it's more than just a mild irritation.

-Paul W.

[However, I figure that whole wine taint issue is a bit overblown, IMHO. One bottle in six cases of wine or 1-2% is really nothing to get all worked up about, as I see it.

True. But when it's your one and only bottle of rare and old wine that you spent a fortune for at auction, it's more than just a mild irritation.

-Paul W.

No doubt.


But that would be the chance you take at any auction for any product. Right?

More useless diatribe, Tim.

The website you originally posted does nothing to substantiate any claim you make.

You try to deflect factual studies (like the ACNielsen report) by ignoring what is stated and making your own inference. How you would think anyone would equate 51% growth with 51% of wine sold is beyond me. Statements like that are only yet another smoke screen.

"It simply means an increase in production" Gee, what can we draw from this? Would wine makers increase production of screw cap wines if consumers were blatantly against them?

You went from a very pointed statement about "here and everywhere" being against screwcaps. But now you admit that in Australia and New Zealand this isn't the case? So what is it, Tim? Is it "here and everywhere" or not?

And now you completely change topic. Tim, nothing you "have been saying on this thread....all along" has mentioned the wine industry not caring about low end wines. Or about incomes and prices. This is all newly fabricated in your last post.

Dodge and weave...dodge and weave. Not only do you not offer evidence, you can't even stay on topic.

More useless diatribe, Tim.

The website you originally posted does nothing to substantiate any claim you make.

You try to deflect factual studies (like the ACNielsen report) by ignoring what is stated and making your own inference. How you would think anyone would equate 51% growth with 51% of wine sold is beyond me. Statements like that are only yet another smoke screen.

"It simply means an increase in production" Gee, what can we draw from this? Would wine makers increase production of screw cap wines if consumers were blatantly against them?

You went from a very pointed statement about "here and everywhere" being against screwcaps. But now you admit that in Australia and New Zealand this isn't the case? So what is it, Tim? Is it "here and everywhere" or not?

And now you completely change topic. Tim, nothing you "have been saying on this thread....all along" has mentioned the wine industry not caring about low end wines. Or about incomes and prices. This is all newly fabricated in your last post.

Dodge and weave...dodge and weave. Not only do you not offer evidence, you can't even stay on topic.

C'mon, Bill...diatribe?

Is it my posts are that confusing or is it you just don't agree? There is plenty here to draw reasonable and provable conclusions relative the the sheer lack of screw capped wines on the shelf. Go to your favorite wine seller and observe this for yourself if my word isn't good enough. I think if you are honest about it, you too will see that I called it correctly.

[BTW, the article I refer to is from that same website I posted...just follow the link:http://www.enologyinternational.com/cork/cork.html ]

Second of all, I never stated anyone equated the 51% figure with anything other than what I correctly identified as a minor growth in screw capped wines. As to anyone being for or against them has very little to do with the wine industry foisting this unfortunate enclosure upon us. Since when do large industries give a rip about those of us without large bank accounts? There is no compulsion on the industry's part to do anything other than make money. In short, do you really think they care if we want the screw caps or not? Besides, that's what this big push is all about isn't it....make us see screw caps as acceptable.

There is mighty resistance for the screw cap, Bill. What better way to defuse that resistance than to market the enclosure in a overtly positive manner. Well, Bill, we are not fooled. A screw cap has a lot of White Port in a brown paper bag baggage to deal with and I, for one, sincerely hope this campaign dies a slow death.

Bill, as you may recall, I mention the Australian and New Zealand markets in my first paragraph. In addition, when I speak of where this is happening, I never once suggested or even intimated this was a world wide occurance. Be honest with me Bill...are you telling me that this market is controlling the wine industry? Or would it be more prudent to say the biggest wine producers in the world are in this order: France, California then Australia/New Zealand? Personally, I wouldn't fall on my sword over a statement like you just made.

Fourthly, what I had said earlier was I have been stating on this and on the California Central Coast threads the lack of concern on the wine industry's part for moderate income wine lovers. I clearly referred to the thread in my post. Here again, I think you just don't agree with me. But I really think it is bad form to berate me over it. Don't you?

As to staying on topic...I certainly hope you are aware that any discussion will evolve, they change and morph into tagents or similarly connected thoughts. Having said that, the post is entirely on topic and again you just don't agree with me. No more, no less.

Unfortunately, it has become the trend in discussions such as these to attempt to demonize or to discredit the person you disagree with. Too bad. So little is to be gained by this sort of tactic.


Tell you what, Bill...it seems to me that it is incumbent upon the person who is disagreeing to show me where what I have said is so off base. Clearly, I am on the mark because the proof is on the shelves of your local wine merchant's store. It's up to you to prove otherwise. Fair?


Peace.