Zork closure

A 1% defect rate is horrendously bad for a consumer product. Imagine if a major tire manufacturer made tires where 1 out of 100 went flat the day after they were bought, and there was no way for the seller or buyer to know ahead of time whether a tire was one of the unlucky 1%. There is no way such a situation would be tolerated.

-Paul W.

Yes, but my experience with wines that I am very familiar with suggests that it is far higher than 1%; at least 5%, but certainly more in some cases.

A 1% defect rate is horrendously bad for a consumer product. Imagine if a major tire manufacturer made tires where 1 out of 100 went flat the day after they were bought, and there was no way for the seller or buyer to know ahead of time whether a tire was one of the unlucky 1%. There is no way such a situation would be tolerated.

-Paul W.

Yes, but my experience with wines that I am very familiar with suggests that it is far higher than 1%; at least 5%, but certainly more in some cases.

Oliver,

Since you are involved in the wine making business, I have a question for you: What do you believe is the National average for product loss?


Just curious and thank you in advance.

[David M. Bueker]

Firstly, there are no 100% flawless products to be found on this or any other planet and 1% is phenomal given the inherent falablity of man made products.

You are so dead wrong I don't even know where to start. I have been in quality control for 16 years, and a 1% is a sure ticket to bankruptcy. Major end producers (e.g. airplane, car, cell phone, appliance...) REQUIRE 99.9+% quality and get rid of suppliers that can't meet it.

In that context, it's only sheepish behavior by consumers (hiding behind tradition is just being someone's fool) that has kept the cork manufacturers in business.

1% sucks.

David, I've been puzzled by the military acceptance levels which seem to define Acceptable Quality Levels at the 1% level. For example,

Acceptable Quality Level (AQL)

The maximal percent of nonconforming items (or the maximal number of nonconformities per 100 items), which is considered, for inspection purposes, as a satisfying process mean.

The AQL is generally specified by the authority responsible of sampling. Different AQLs may be designated for different types of defects. It is common to use an AQL of 1% for major defects, and 2.5% for minor defects.

Values of AQL that are 10% or less are suitable for percent nonconforming or nonconformities per 100 items. Values of AQL over 10% are only suitable for nonconformities per 100 items.

I found this definition at http://www.sqconline.com/mil-std-105.html

but remember similar standards -- without understanding them really -- when dealing with QC people in a previous job.

As a practical matter, I have never encountered food items with serious flaws at the levels I find them in wine. We are running at 8.4% corked wine this year, up a bit over my last five year average of 7.5%.

For comparison purposes, since I started cooking and food shopping ten years ago, we've purchased at least 1500 containers of no fat milk. I can remember only one of them being flawed, a slow leak which turned out to be caused by the way the dairy guy was loading the cartons into the cooler.

I check eggs one by one before purchase -- one in a thousand would be a high estimate from my experience, and of course the egg cartons are subject to consumer abuse as well as normally handling problems in the food delivery chain.

I'm really very hard pressed to find anything like the flawed rates in wine anywhere else in foods.

Regards, Bob

[James Roscoe]

I'm really very hard pressed to find anything like the flawed rates in wine anywhere else in foods.

Regards, Bob

Could you imagine if beer had a flaw rate of even 1%?! We'd have bipartisan Congressional action faster than you can say FDA. Yet wine has a much higher flaw rate and no one cares!

James, since writing that post, I've been going through the food aisles and trying to find anything like my experiences with wine. Nothing computes -- in fact for many of the foods I buy, food is generally almost perfect: vinegar, dated olive oil, packaged bread, butter, cream, cheese, frozen vegetables, canned fish, on and on.

And for fresh foods, I am a very picky chooser -- my Italian cooking coaches have convinced me that great ingredients are the first and the most important step in making great food. Although I pass much of the fresh stuff by, it's not because the food isn't good quality, just doesn't meet some very prissy standards.

I've often wondered why wine drinkers are so accepting of flawed wines. I know from my many years of loving beer I almost never found a bad bottle (or keg :-) ). I'm sure closures had something to do with that. And I'm also sure that since wine is often served a bit warmer than other liquids, both the flaws and the glories in wine are more evident that they would be, say, in soda or pop, milk, beer or bottled water.

Finally, I really wish there were an inexpensive method of identifying flawed wine. I've bought samples of various wine taints, including TCA samples, and done my best to learn how to identify wine taints. Nonetheless, there's an element of subjectivity in all the red flags I throw at corked wines.

Luckily Janet is even better than I am at identifying problems. And, she points out that even if TCA for example can't be detected by a human taster, the fruit may very well be hidden by its presence.

Whatever the reason, there's a real incremental cost wine lovers pay for undrinkable or less than acceptable wine -- a price I suppose I'll have to continue to pay for so long as I love wine.

Regards, Bob

[James Roscoe]

Bob,
The problem is that there is a perfectly acceptable way of eliminating the most common cause of flaws in wine, i.e. TCA. Then you have people crusading against the very solution that would make their beloved product better and less expensive. I don't get it. Oh, well, back to the picnic!
Cheers!
James

Guys,

Any loss is not a good thing....and I admire those who work to make it as little an issue as possible. We can agree on that.

I just know that in terms of product shrinkage in the packing houses around my town and the food left to rot in the fields after the harvest is well beyond 1%. How that translates from the field to the packaging to the saleable product on the shelves, I don't know. It is why I posed the question.

It just seems to me we are focusing on the wrong end of the process. At 1% it means a full 99% of procduct is being shipped and/or sold. Now on any level of business, that is pretty darn good, IMO. I'd take that level of success in my job in a second.

[David M. Bueker]

It just seems to me we are focusing on the wrong end of the process. At 1% it means a full 99% of procduct is being shipped and/or sold. Now on any level of business, that is pretty darn good, IMO. I'd take that level of success in my job in a second.

As I said earlier, you would be out of a job very quickly in many industries. Agriculture is a special case.

Wine however, when properly handled can be 100% protected. Resting on tradition and outmoded models of quality to accept less than that is foolish.

And for Bob Ross, most major programs no longer allow an AQL level of anything less than zero. Lots are accepted with zero defects and rejected with one.

It just seems to me we are focusing on the wrong end of the process. At 1% it means a full 99% of procduct is being shipped and/or sold. Now on any level of business, that is pretty darn good, IMO. I'd take that level of success in my job in a second.

As I said earlier, you would be out of a job very quickly in many industries. Agriculture is a special case.

Seriously? I honestly didn't know that. I stand corrected, then. Thanks.

Would these industries be related to food or wine?

Wine however, when properly handled can be 100% protected. Resting on tradition and outmoded models of quality to accept less than that is foolish.

Hm.

No shrinkage at all...not even a few bottles?

No offense, but I find that very difficult to believe.



However, I stand for aesthetics, too. How do you balance that with a quest for perfection?

Interesting, Graeme! Do you think there is any effect on the order of adoption due to the cost of having to re-tool the bottling line?

I don't know any specifics for wineries in the sense of replacing one line with another, or anything like that. I know some very small producers weren't going to change until they'd used up stocks of existing packaging materials - capsules, corks & bottles. In the early days, the screwtop bottles were priced at a premium as well, since they were all imported from France, so lots of people adopted a 'wait-and-see' attitude. Not any more. And at one stage in 2004, winemaker Andrew Pirie told me (when in Tasmania) that demand for screwcapping equipment was outstripping supply. I imagine by now that it's all pretty straightforward.

Maybe in the early days wineries contracted out their screwcap bottling but continued the cork line themselves - I don't know. But you walk into an Australian bottle-shop these days and find the following locally-made screwcapped wines:
- virtually all rieslings, sauv-sem blends and other aromatic whites
- the vast majority of chardonnays (the exceptions scattered all over the price range)
- most pinot noir made by larger volume makers
- a broad mix of other reds although probably less than half; again spread right across the price range - there are plenty of $100 reds under screwcap and the number is increasing. But there are still $8 bottles under cork too.

New Zealand-made wines are even more 'screwcapped' than ours, and there's little doubt that Australian inporters are encouraging Old World makers to use screwcaps on their bottles intended for the Australian market.

The changeover was generally driven by the smaller, progressive makers. The giants - Hardys, Orlando, Southcorp, etc. were happy enough to change some rieslings at the start, but were generally conservative, although there's little enough resistance left by now. The conservatives/cults who sell out like *that* (snaps finger) - Mount Mary, Wendouree, Rockford, Yarra Yering haven't shown signs of changing yet. I mentioned Giaconda earlier, who lost almost an entire vintage to bushfire smoke damage, so decided to sell the following vintage en primeur to help cash-flow; as part of the deal they allowed punters to choose their seal, and got a 50/50 response. Would that the Bordelais would do the same... Henschke are putting some Hill of Grace under screw I believe; if Penfolds release Grange and other top reds that way then the dam will definitely have burst.

I wouldn't discount the evangelical efforts of Australian flying winemakers in the northern vintage either. They'll bring the doubting winemakers around. It's the fear of the public response that stops the change. That's why the guys who have the inherent demand and reputation can make the difference.

cheers,
Graeme

[David M. Bueker]

However, I stand for aesthetics, too. How do you balance that with a quest for perfection?

A piece of tree bark is a piece of tree bark, nothing more or less. It has no aesthetic value.

If I want aestetics I will listen to a Mozart Concerto, read Shakespeare, admire a Monet or kiss my wife.

"Lots are accepted with zero defects and rejected with one."

Thanks, David. My experience was in medical devices, food additives and pharmaceuticals, where zero defects was the only acceptable standard. The only debate was how large samples had to be, especially since so much of it was destructive.

You've been very helpful. And, I agree, the defect rates have to be determined based on the final product. Losses in the production/packaging/distribution chain are a cost of business for the manufacturers and retailers, but don't affect the consumer except as a matter of increased cost.

As a former dairy farmer, we couldn't insure that we would be able to sell 100% of all the milk our cows produced, but we went to extraordinary efforts to be sure shrinkage was as low as possible -- instant chilling for example. I remember going through the whole bottling chain as a high school student, and was struck even 50 years ago at how careful people were to prevent shrinkage of any kind.

Thank goodness I'm only a consumer now. :-)

Regards, and thanks again David. Bob

However, I stand for aesthetics, too. How do you balance that with a quest for perfection?

A piece of tree bark is a piece of tree bark, nothing more or less. It has no aesthetic value.

If I want aestetics I will listen to a Mozart Concerto, read Shakespeare, admire a Monet or kiss my wife.

David,

I speak of the ritual of anticipation just before the gentle "pop" of the cork as it is pulled from the bottle. The first olfactory sensations as one catches the first aromas of the wine off the cork. The examination of the cork and the deepness of the ruby red soaked into its end. That first two ounce pour, the swirl, the glycerides clinging to the side of the glass just as you gaze through the red translucence of the wine. The first sip, perhaps another sniff from the cork and the satisfaction of a cellering come to full fruition.

I awake from this dream to the sudden "scree-SNAP" of the ultimate and efficient alternate enclosure. No ritual. No anticipation. No nothin'. Just another alcoholic beverage. Like kissing your sister through the screen door: no excitment. No rommance. Sterile, lifeless and vapid....but the wine was good.

I dunno. A lot to be said for aesthetics, my friend. We have museums for the same reason. To me, it's worth the risk to have cork enclosures and I can still listen to Mozart and kiss my wife, too.

[David M. Bueker]

"Lots are accepted with zero defects and rejected with one."

Just a quick FYI Bob. The two major quality standards (ISO 9001 and AS9100) both require that when sampling plans are used that a lot is rejected if 1 defect is found.

Graeme, I remember an article by Robin a while back reporting that smaller wineries moved to screw caps quickly because travelling bottling plants came to their wineries to apply the caps. I think it was during one of his wine judging trips to Australia.

He also noted an odd behaviour -- when the uncapped bottle wasn't in use, restaurant diners and even the waitstaff often would recap the wine. He wrote that he had never seen that behaviour with corks, and people couldn't explain why it was done.

Is that still a common practice in Australia?

(Wish I could find the article -- I think it was a 30 Second Wine Adviser piece -- but I'm not turning it up tonight.)

Regards, Bob

David, on tehe aesthetics point, a friend of mine has a supply of clean corks. When he opens a screwcap, he immediately corks the bottle and pushes the cork down as far as possible.

When he brings the wine to table, he goes through the whole uncorking ritual. :-)

I asked him what he did if he was drinking alone -- he laughed and said he went through the same ritual -- "Practice makes perfect, Bob."

Regards, Bob

David, on tehe aesthetics point, a friend of mine has a supply of clean corks. When he opens a screwcap, he immediately corks the bottle and pushes the cork down as far as possible.

When he brings the wine to table, he goes through the whole uncorking ritual.

I asked him what he did if he was drinking alone -- he laughed and said he went through the same ritual -- "Practice makes perfect, Bob."

Regards, Bob

A faint copy at best, Bob.




sheesh

BTW...if your re-screw the wine, it will still oxidize and eventually spoil.


Nothing gained.

I speak of the ritual of anticipation just before the gentle "pop" of the cork as it is pulled from the bottle. The first olfactory sensations as one catches the first aromas of the wine off the cork.

And it's at this point that you seem to have missed entirely the reason why corks are losing market share. They're just not reliably good enough at delivering the wine in the condition it ought to be in. What about TCA? What about oxidation? Do these bother you?

I awake from this dream to the sudden "scree-SNAP" of the ultimate and efficient alternate enclosure. No ritual. No anticipation. No nothin'. Just another alcoholic beverage. Like kissing your sister through the screen door: no excitment. No rommance. Sterile, lifeless and vapid....but the wine was good.

OK, well, you're clearly more in love with the idea of drinking wine than the actual wine itself. The cork isn't some benignly quaint tradition like passing the port to the left, or standing up during the Hallelujah Chorus, using a hickory-shafted putter, talking on an old bakelite telephone at home, or driving an Austin Chummy to work. These are endearing traditions; you still get your port, you still hear the music, the ball goes toward the hole, you hear your interlocutor, the old car gets you from A to B. That's character - fine. But to keep the cork you run the known (& guaranteed) risk that the object of the exercise - the consumtion of a wonderful wine - will be impossible. The cork is the screen door coming between you and the wine! It's rather like wanting to have all your recorded music played on an Edison cylinder player; it's historic, quaint and sometimes a bit of fun. But if you actually want decent sound, you're in the wrong place...

Graeme

Courtesy, actually, Tim. He and his wife do a great deal of entertaining, much more than Janet and I do. He's not a wine geek but serves a nice range of wines, beer and other beverages. They've found that some of their guests have extraordinarily strong negative reactions to screw caps.

I had a little indication of the phenomenom last August. Rich and Holly had a picnic at their house for their son's graduation from high school, about a hundred people, half adults, half teens. Great fun.

I met a lady from Argentina, a med tech of some sort, and we fell into conversation over wine. She had chosen a light Bonny Doone and we chatted a bit about wine -- I knew a little about Weinert, she strongly preferred Spanish wines, she knew Victor by reputation, I had just heard Victor talk about a legal issue in Spain on NPR, we were having a nice time chatting each other up.

She asked me how I thought Argentina could improve it's wine exports. Always one with an opininon, ill founded as it may be, I suggested that the industry follow some of the practices of the Chilean wineries -- especially improving cleanliness and consistency. I also suggested that they might introduce some lower cost wines under screw cap in the way Australia and New Zealand were.

My experience has been that Argentines of an educated class are some of the very best in the world at expressing contempt in a wonderfully civilized manner. She gave this last suggestion the full treatment -- might be fine for some tastes but cork was essential for fine wine, she would never drink a wine from a bottle sealed with a screw cap ... you know the drill I think, Tim.

Real passion communicated with great skill. I was enjoying the show and considering how to launch into my defense of Grahm and how much I admired him and how best to end with the revelation about the wine she was drinking and clearly enjoying.

But ...

Rich is a really big guy, and I could see him over her shoulder wagging his finger and hushing me.

I asked a few more questions about her love of cork, asked a bit about TCA, learned that for her and all of her friends (she was sure) cork and fine wine were inseperable. It was the first time really that I had met anyone who didn't have an economic interest in the matter and cared about using cork to seal wine bottles. I was deeply impressed.

In the event, after she finished her defense of cork, we moved on to other subjects, and parted with a mutual warm regard. I'm not sure that would have been true had I launched into my full defense of screw caps frankly. (Or it might have been another type of warmth.)

In any event, I asked Rich and Holly about their self corking technique. Rich said people were sometimes very passionate about the subject, and that after one particularly bitter discussion at a party a few months earlier, he and Holly had come up with the idea of serving only wines that looked like they were bottled under cork.

Personally, though, they liked Bonny Doon and New Zealand wines for informal summer and fall parties, and had hit on the self corking technique. Their only reason for doing so was to help their guests enjoy their parties more.

Careful hosts, and thoughtful people, I think. Practical too.

I probably wouldn't do it myself, but then I'm not as nice as they are.

Regards, Bob

I speak of the ritual of anticipation just before the gentle "pop" of the cork as it is pulled from the bottle. The first olfactory sensations as one catches the first aromas of the wine off the cork.

And it's at this point that you seem to have missed entirely the reason why corks are losing market share. They're just not reliably good enough at delivering the wine in the condition it ought to be in. What about TCA? What about oxidation? Do these bother you?

Not exactly.

Do you think I come by this position merely by chance? Really?

Let me offer you the following true story:

A colleague of mine and I were at a conference in Santa Clara, CA a year ago where I was a featured speaker. This is the same friend I mentioned earlier who used to chef at a five star restaurant in San Francisco.

As a celebration for a good session, we went to a four star restaurant nearby and he asked the waitperson to open a 1988 Borduex Gran Cru he brought in from home. As she did this the cork split, but pulled out anyway. The concern at that point was the wine must be tainted.

The waitperson poured the first taste...it was ruby red and exquisite. The first sip was absolute heaven and the rest of the bottle opened up marvelously with every bite of food. It was, to say the least, one of the best aged wines I have ever had the occassion no, the priveledge to drink. Ever.

A screw cap would never have done the job aesthtetically and my friend would concur the aging process would have been fatally flawed.

Perhaps you think me argumentative, I won't speculate. But I know the truth and the truth is corked wine does the job and marvelously well....some 17 years later.

A screw cap offers sterility and efficiency....a world I want no part of.

I awake from this dream to the sudden "scree-SNAP" of the ultimate and efficient alternate enclosure. No ritual. No anticipation. No nothin'. Just another alcoholic beverage. Like kissing your sister through the screen door: no excitment. No rommance. Sterile, lifeless and vapid....but the wine was good.

OK, well, you're clearly more in love with the idea of drinking wine than the actual wine itself. The cork isn't some benignly quaint tradition like passing the port to the left, or standing up during the Hallelujah Chorus, using a hickory-shafted putter, talking on an old bakelite telephone at home, or driving an Austin Chummy to work. These are endearing traditions; you still get your port, you still hear the music, the ball goes toward the hole, you hear your interlocutor, the old car gets you from A to B. That's character - fine. But to keep the cork you run the known (& guaranteed) risk that the object of the exercise - the consumtion of a wonderful wine - will be impossible. The cork is the screen door coming between you and the wine! It's rather like wanting to have all your recorded music played on an Edison cylinder player; it's historic, quaint and sometimes a bit of fun. But if you actually want decent sound, you're in the wrong place...

Graeme

With all due respect, I am in love with my wife, Graeme.

However, I relish the ritual of uncorking a beautifully hand crafted bottle of wine almost more than I enjoy drinking it. Call me old fashioned, call me an idiot. I do not care

You can put me and this time honored ritual down all you care to...it still exists. And I intend to keep it that way.

...or driving an Austin Chummy to work.

Graeme,

Okay, I'll be the one to ask; what exactly is an "Austin Chummy"?

They're just not reliably good enough at delivering the wine in the condition it ought to be in. What about TCA? What about oxidation? Do these bother you?

Not exactly.

Uh huh.....

...and he asked the waitperson to open a 1988 Borduex Gran Cru he brought in from home. As she did this the cork split, but pulled out anyway. The concern at that point was the wine must be tainted....

Mmmmmm......

A screw cap would never have done the job aesthtetically and my friend would concur the aging process would have been fatally flawed.

Would have been....? On the basis of ... what?

But I know the truth and the truth is corked wine does the job and marvelously well....some 17 years later.

However, I relish the ritual of uncorking a beautifully hand crafted bottle of wine almost more than I enjoy drinking it.

Yeah, I kinda thought that.
Signing off. This is like banging your head against a vicious circle...
cheers,
Graeme