Do crown-cap closed wines have an image problem?

I've recently been on another one of my Central European moods, which typically entails focusing on table wines from Hungary and Austria.

Some time ago, we read a note here on the Hofer GV Qualitätswein, which is perhaps unique in its packaging in that it comes in a 1-litre bottle closed with a crown cap. The overall presentation of this is at once minimalistic and elegant; I frankly like it for its uniqueness. I haven't come across the Hofer GV in Toronto, but have frequently seen Greek Retsina in crown-capped small clear bottles.

That said, I am not sure whether crown caps function for anything more than short-term quaffing-type wines. There's also the less urgent question of how to re-seal a bottle thusly closed: you can't re-use the cap, and I doubt very much that anyone would be using the sort of twist-off crown caps that are common with certain beers.

Adding to all this, is it correct to say that the crown cap is more frequently seen as a closure for quaffable wines in Europe than in North America? Is it perhaps an ideal closure for smaller sizes, e.g. 350 ml or 500 ml formats? I wonder if this format will ever catch on in our marketing-heavy Western culture - maybe if something akin to the heuriger tradition ever arose, it would ...

Every bottle of champagne style wine from the lowest level to the highest spends a lot of time under a crown seal. Sometimes many years. It doesn't harm the wine physically but most people will not realize how the bubbles in their glass started out in life.

Paul

As Neil says, the crown cap is a proven, effective closure for wine, and it's certainly more able to take getting knocked around than a screwcap.

I wouldn't have a problem with it. I've had too many good wines ruined by TCA and premature oxidation (at least some of which is cause by cork's failure as a seal.)

But, yeah, at the moment it would present certain image problems for the fine wine segment of the market, but I don't doubt they could be overcome.

Who's going to go first is the question....

[David M. Bueker]

Crown caps do not yet have a wine-associated image. There's too few bottlings using them to create an image. I have not noticed any reluctance of people to drink tons of the Hofer though...

A few isolated sparklers on the Australian market are thus sealed, and they're from big makers too, one product line by Chandon, and one or two from Seppelt. Don't think any buyer resistance was encountered, and in the case of Seppelt, who offered their top-level long-aging Sparkling Shiraz under a choice of closures, the crown-seal demand long outstripped that for cork.
cheers,
Graeme

David is right. Hofer is the first notable producer in Austria to use a crown cap. If anything was to be said about image, it wouldn't be the crown cap, but the use of the one-liter bottle which is associated with low-level plonk throughout Europe.

Another good producer, Franz Czerny from Weingut Wimmer-Czerny in Fels am Wagram, has announced that he would offer the choice of cork or crown-cap (for 750mls), but I have not yet seen a single bottle.

Whether crown caps are a good closure or not depends on the oxygen transmission properties of the liner. The crown cap, like the screwcap, is merely a mechanical means of keeping the liner in close contact with the bottle rim.

There's no reason why crown caps couldn't be good wine closures, but it does depend on the liner.

[David M. Bueker]

There's no reason why crown caps couldn't be good wine closures, but it does depend on the liner.

And there's the rub. I'm all for screwcaps and crown caps, but since I never know what kind of liner a producer is using I have to just experiment on my own for ageability. Granted I would still prefer to drink a sound wine too soon over a corked wine at peak, but maybe some day producers will write nice notes on the labels (much like Ridge) with useful information, including how their closure choice affects ageability.

Regarding crown caps and aging, as a data point we have decades of experience in Champagne, where all of the wine, during and after secondary fermentation in the bottle, is kept sealed by a crown cap, until disgorgement of the yeast sediment and final topping up prior to labeling and shipment. So Champagne lives under a crown cap for up to a decade, maybe more.

It's ironic that the last stage in the Champagne production process is to replace the ultra-reliable crown cap with a failure-prone cork.


Regarding crown caps on still wines, yes, they suffer a severe bad image problem. Folks associate crown caps with "lesser" beverages such as soda pop and beer.

There is a lot of talk about the romance of the cork and the aesthetics of pulling it out of the bottle at serving time.

There is also a lot of talk (much of it not repeatable in polite company) about the UN-romance of corked bottles, corks that crumble, corks pushed into the wine bottles, Champagne that's lost its fizz due to cork leakage, and so on. Personally, I'll gladly forgo the "romance" of the cork if I can be rid of these annoying and expensive problems that faulty corks cause distressingly often.

-Paul W.

I've asked my Prosecco producer to see if we can use crown caps. We would have to declare the wine as a lower appellation, I believe, because Prosecco di Valdobbiadene has to use a mushroom cork.

Then Mytik is a bit of a no-brainer, isn't it? Taint free.

Then Mytik is a bit of a no-brainer, isn't it? Taint free.

The most serious cork problem I've had with sparkling wine was a batch of bark cork that was 'woody,' ie insufficiently elastic, and didn't re-expand properly after insertion. I discarded FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY cases of Prosecco, which the cork supplier paid for (they also paid for air freight of some wine to tide me over, I cannot imagine how much the whole adventure cost them).

I am very ready for an alternative for cork, but I worry that the customer reaction will be less positive than it has been for screwcaps and still wine.

Then Mytik is a bit of a no-brainer, isn't it? Taint free.

Caution, Jamie. "Mytik Diamant" is what we are talking about, made from CO2-cleaned particles. "Mytik Revtech", however, made from steam-cleaned particles (something I'd suppose to be rather similar to Amorim's ROSA technique), in our tasting has already shown that it's definitely not TCA-free.

Thanks Michael, that's an important distinction, I agree. Yes, Revtech is quite like ROSA, at least in principle.