The days following Thanksgiving found me at our affiliated wine bar in Solvang. Much of my time there was filled with angst over our technical problems (no I do NOT recommend using Quick Books POS in your next wine bar!) But I still managed to spend some time entertaining guests from behind the bar, where I poured tastes of the Nada Roja Sauvignon Blanc as part of the "Sideways Wine Club Flight".
Much of the buzz over this wine was due to its glass stopper (photo), one of the first wines to use this award-winning "closure system". Response was unanimously positive due to a number of attractive features:
- No corkscrew required! Winelovers are separated from their first sip my simply scoring the foil capsule with a strong fingernail or coin. Once removed, a thumb of average strength can click off the stopper.
- No cork taint. Of course.
- No oxidation. The glass stopper is rimmed underneath its lip with a thin gas-tight and acid-resistant seal that imparts no flavor to the wine.
- Reseals easily. Didn't finish the bottle in one sitting? No worries, just click the leak-proof stopper back into place and slide the bottle back into the refrigerator. This is an especially welcome benefit at our wine bar, where leaky tops regularly drip wine into the bottom of our wine cooler to quickly grow stale and stinky. Cleaning this up is not a job employees fight for.
But the perfect wine closure has yet to be invented, and I wonder about the reductive concerns that can occur in a wine held in an oxygen-free, air-tight enclosure (exactly the environment the cork allegedly eliminates through it's slow, microscopic seepage of oxygen). When it occurs, reduction leaves in its wake the unpleasant aromas of sulfur, over-ripe onions, or rubber. And even before these flaws become evident, a reduced wine loses its freshness in much the same way as a wine undergoing the early stages of cork taint.
Screwcaps are becoming criticized for allowing reduction to occur in a small percentage (some estimate ~2%) of their wines. I would guess that glass stoppers will yield the same concerns. Note, however, that cork taint is responsible for an even higher percentage of fouled wine, having completely ruined some wineries, costing millions of dollars in recalls for others, and causing unknown damage to wine brands in the consumer's mind.
The #2 concern for winemakers considering screwcaps is the public reaction to a screwcap closure on premium wines. While the edge of the acceptance envelope is being pushed ever-higher by the wine drinking public, glass stoppers seem to have a natural immunity to these concerns. Their heft seems to communicate quality in a way feather-weight screwcaps don't. And these stoppers really are very dense, with one report indicating they can survive a drop from a second story window. Plus, the Greens like their recyclability.
Are these the best closure of all possible alternatives? On the surface, it seems to be a contender. But given that no stopper is infallible, I withhold judgment until the reduction tests are in.
Dave Chambers, Wine Merchant
Portions of this posting were gleaned from the new book "To Cork or Not To Cork" by George M. Taber
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