Cork versus screw cap

Cork versus screw cap. Why do we need corks at all?

Why do we need corks at all?

Wine has been bottled and consumed since 4000 BC. It came about as an accident when grapes were stored in ceramic urns. These grapes had been affected by natural native airborne yeast which started the process of turning the sugars in the grapes to alcohol.

Once the secret got out it spread across Greece, Italy and Egypt and they wanted to be able to travel with their precious liquid. For many years oil soaked rags were used as a stopper.

Cork was coincidentally being used at the same time in fishing tackle in China and Egypt. Its one great characteristic was its resistance to rot. It took until the 17th century for these two products to be married together. Long periods with bottled, corked wine in damp cellars wouldn't damage the integrity of the wine. Voila!

Well not quite, these wines could be very volatile. With poor wine making practices many of these wines ended up being 'corked'. This is when a chemical reaction takes place. Natural occurring fungus on the cork meets with the chemicals in the wine and can result in a flat, mouldy and off flavour wine. Estimates are that 5-10% of all wine is corked to some degree thus ruining your experience.

Air plus wine is a bad mix. Oxidisation will make wine flat and will dull the flavours.

Corks are porous, some more some less; screw caps are 100% non porous.

You are ultimately looking for a true expression of the winemakers hard efforts as they intended it to be tasted.

So don't be put off with old fashioned snobbery.

Many high end wines across the world are only using screw cap.

It would seem that tradition keeps cork with us for now, although this may change with high prices and scarcity of cork.

If this is a hard pill for the old world wine makers to swallow the introduction of Tetra-pak cartons may be a stretch too far, but it's on its way, and some of it is really good too.

Food & Wine by Paul Sheerin
Pshearse@gmail.com