A good long cork costs over $1.50 per bottle. Except for wines that will be laid down to age (something probably 90% of wine drinkers do not do), that sort of cork is nostalgic but antiquated. Most people buy wine to drink immediately so a screwtop is fine for them. I have maybe 300 bottles laid down in my little cellar, mainly Brunellos, Bordeaux and Burgundies from France. Those I would never expect to find with a screwtop.
Most wine experts accept and acknowledge that screwtops and even boxes are the packaging of choice for most wines going forward. Forward thinking vineyards are experimenting with many closures. Thomas will know much more than I on this but I do know that many innovative wineries such as Randall Graham in California, Drouhin in France, Antinori in Italy all have screwtop wines as well as traditional closures.
"PlumpJack's screw-top cap will cost $135 a bottle upon release in September.
It's already received a warm reception. Five bottles of the screw-top cab sold for $50,000 at the Napa Valley Napa Valley, Calif,
This is the first luxury wine to eschew a cork and, joking aside, the winery owners, Gordon Getty (Gordon Peter Getty was born on December 20, 1934. He is the fourth child of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. When his father died in 1976, control of his US$2 billion trust was transferred to Gordon.)
They want to cut down on bottles being returned because of cork taint, a musty odor that resembles wet cardboard. And frequently there is the nuisance of bits of cork bobbing around in your wine glass. A screw top eliminates that, too.
Also, diners also won't have to worry about an inexperienced waiter breaking the screw top off in the bottle. And we can dispense with that cork-sniffing business.
``This has been a long time coming, as anyone who follows the wine industry knows,'' Gordon Getty said in a statement. ``The technology is in place, we believe the market is prepared and all that remains is for someone to break the barrier of tradition.''
So PlumpJack is popping the cork on the project.
While the winery is prepared for a little controversy, this is not a whimsical indulgence by industry renegades.
PlumpJack's owners are respected members of the Northern California wine set. Their holdings include an inn and several restaurants, where wine is priced at retail plus $1.
John Conover, general manager at the PlumpJack Winery in Oakville, said the company loses 5 percent to 7 percent of its wine to cork taint annually. Spread those numbers across the industry worldwide and it adds up to hundreds of millions of dollars.
The winery will compare how the 1997 screw-top cab ages vs. traditional corked corked
adj.
1. Sealed with or as if with a cork.
2. Tainted in flavor by an unsound cork: corked port.
3. Blackened by burnt cork. bottles. The University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis, commonly known as UC Davis, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, and was established as the University Farm in 1905. , will also conduct a comparison study.
Conover notes that the wine won't come into contact with the metal cap and that the bottles can be stored standing up rather than on their sides. The bottles were made in Italy and the caps in France.
David Breitstein, owner of the Duke of Bourbon Duke of Bourbon is a title in the peerage of France. It was created in the first half of the 14th century for the eldest son of Robert of France, Count of Clermont and Beatrice of Burgundy, heiress of the lordship of Bourbon said he likes the idea.
``I think it's worth trying . . . and I'm sure the winery has done enough asking around to think it's worth trying. I'm all for it and I've requested we get an allocation of the wine,'' he said. ``These are respectable people and it's a very high-quality winery with a good reputation.''
A screw top should not pose any problem to aging gracefully, either.
About 70 percent of the wine purchased is consumed within three days and 90 percent within a year, said Gladys Horiuchi, spokeswoman from the Wine Institute in San Francisco.
``The screw cap seals the wine just as good as a cork,'' she said. ``But there is always the issue of consumers wanting the traditional closure and, really, if someone is going to pay $135 for a bottle of wine they may want the cork.''
No problem. PlumpJack has got that covered, too.
The company is also shipping the 1997 cab with a cork.
It's a relative bargain at $125 a bottle. "
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