Feature Article : Seeking Closure: Or, Screwcaps happen when the cork industry is satisfied with just screwing around

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Seeking Closure: Or, Screwcaps happen when the cork industry is satisfied with just screwing around.


	The closure you see on INOX™ Chardonnay is the future, not the past or a sign of “cheap” wines.

Usually when Technology and Romance collide no one notices. They normally don’t even play together, have the same friends, dress the same or admit the other exists. In the wine neighborhood, however, you can expect “sound and fury” over the next few years as frustrated winemakers and collectors tired of “corked” wines go head-to-head with consumers who value the romance, tradition and ceremony of naturally corked wines—value it enough to pay for bottles they can’t drink because of TCA. And the “sound” will pit popping corks and zipping screwcaps.

Although a non TCA-affected natural cork is a great closure especially for long-aged wines, it has become Russian roulette guessing which ones will be good and which ones not. We want every bottle we open to be the same. “Corked” wines affect between 1.2% (per cork makers) and 18% (per recent wine maker summaries) of wines finished with natural cork. In extended tastings I personally have tallied 8% of our own wines, no matter how expensive or perfect cosmetically the cork is, which are either noticeably “corked” or are affected in a more insidious way, with aromatics and flavors clipped to where even I can’t recognize it, and the consumer would think twice about repurchasing it.

What Is TCA? TCA (2,4,6 trichloroanisole) is a compound sometimes found in natural cork and woody materials that imparts moldy, musty, wet cardboard, burlap sack aromas to wine (you may have also noted it in bottled water, entering building spaces, etc.). It is part of a natural biodegradation and detoxification reaction on toxic compounds (chlorinated phenol precursors) by microbes (like filamentous fungal strains allowed to prep cork bark) to create anisoles which are harmless, except to wine appreciation. TCA can be detected on the nose and palate at levels as small as two parts per trillion. Current chemical instrumental methods (SPME-GC/MS) can detect 0.68 PPT. All TCA takes to form is a source of chlorine, a woody source like cork, fiber or wooden surfaces, and molds. Chlorine and mold concentrations don’t have to be large. Wineries like ours which don’t September 23, 2005 rinated well water have no TCA in the facility. The cost of spoilage exceeds $10 billion worldwide annually (per Butzke), 80% attributable to these anisoles. A problem worth solving.

Chehalem’s Stance and the Benefits. Our movement to plastic corks several years back was a response to personal TCA frustrations (read: Supremecorq, the feature article in our Fall '00 newsletter). Moving on to screwcaps continues that hunt for a perfect closure. Many high tech Australian, New Zealand and increasingly more California, Oregon and Washington wineries are also moving towards Stelvin closures (the leading version of screwcaps).


The 2003 INOX™ Chardonnay is the first in a series of Chehalem wines to be bottled with a screwcap.

Beginning with the 2003 INOX™ as an introduction, screwcaps will exclusively seal all our 2004 white wines, except Ian’s Reserve Chardonnay, and will seal our 2004 3 Vineyard Pinot Noir. The exceptions await a few more years of aging trials before we make the change. Although cork taint prompts the move, other benefits should also accrue to us.

In Australian Wine Research Institute’s 2000 closure trials, screwcaps showed the lowest reduction in SO2 levels and lowest browning of white wines; this resulted in sensory findings of highest retained fruit levels, lowest oxidized or aged characters and no TCA. Studies have also shown natural cork to impart unwanted woody flavors of their own to wines which affect the wine’s final perception.

Screwcaps provide a better seal—it isn’t about cutting costs, for in fact they cost more to use today. Besides proving to almost entirely eliminate TCA and oxidation, screwcaps also conveniently allow the wine to be stored upright (with no corks to keep wet) and to be easily opened, resealed and recycled. Also, cellar humidity and temperature conditions aren’t as critical to control.

The number one problem with screwcaps is perception—impressions that wine under screwcap is inferior, based on old skidroad stereotypes, especially to those invested in the ritualistic, romantic, prissy wine service that serves at best to pass the inspection responsibility off to the consumer, and at worst to isolate the diner in a rarefied, pretentious game—the pomp and the pop of the tableside ritual. We like tradition, but not at the expense of wine quality.

New ceremonial rituals could replace old, including a general education as to why wineries that care and are the most responsible use screwcaps, and how the paradigm has twisted—from low quality wines wearing screwcaps to highest quality wines now sporting them.

The Cork Industry Response and the Environment. The efforts of cork manufacturers to clean up their act are a matter of too little too late… It’s ironic the screw cap was in fact a French invention. Jamie Oliver: Food and Drink. The cork industry’s task is not an easy one, because of inherently difficult technological challenges and years of denial and inactivity. They need to move from a tradition-bound old industry, to a modern industry with an old but reliable product.

They have recently tried to excuse the problem on environmental grounds, arguing cork, as imperfect as it is, should still be used because the cork holds in thrall the Mediterranean cork oak forests and its bird and animal population. To preserve a sustainable industry to protect a broad ecosystem is emotionally persuasive. However, tolerating shoddiness and the cork industry’s ongoing dismissal of the problem will not save these jobs, forests, or their inhabitants. Properly addressed, it is feasible the industry could rise phoenix-like from TCA ashes, but it will take efforts only recently undertaken and an admission that they, not their customers, are responsible for their forests and industry.

Possibly equally critical to the environment, what is the cost of wasted resources, when 10% of a product is spoiled and all energies and raw materials used in its production, from grapegrowing to packaging to transportation, are thrown away?

Screwcap packaging is easily recyclable, with aluminum having ingrained recycling processes. Natural corks can biodegrade, but often begin in the bottle and plastic corks don't get recycled by the average consumer.

As an Ethical and Economical Issue. We should not knowingly ship wine that contains some portion that is flawed. Responses from wineries that “the wine was in perfect condition when it left here” tries to pass the buck. It is our product and we shouldn’t tolerate this level of packaging failure—the cork suppliers are ours and not yours. Abdication of our responsibility is unethical, if not criminal.

Is it acceptable to knowingly release defective products? That’s what we’re talking about here: defective products. That’s what corked wines are. And let’s not kid ourselves. Every winery that uses corks knows full well that somewhere between three and five percent of everything it sends out the door is defective. (Matt Kramer, How Can They Live With Themselves? Wine Spectator October 2003.)

To finish for Matt, none of us would tolerate 8% (my number) defectives from say maternity nurses or munitions manufacturers or payroll services.

Corked wines cost our winery financially, because of returns (minor, because most people don’t return or complain) and because of dissatisfaction, major, when a customer is less than totally pleased, even if he or she doesn’t know exactly why. Insidious, silent, destructive.

Chehalem product at risk of cork taint, if we were using natural cork only, is worth $250,000 retail. And we’re a small potatoes winery.

Hesitancy on Red Wine Aging. Initially the move to screwcaps involves mainly whites, screwcaps being especially effective with aromatic wines. But with ageable reds there is some hesitancy, with a paucity of aging data consisting mainly of anecdotal experiences from trials long ago.

Wine myth has it that the natural cork is required for proper aging of wines, arguing that gradual oxidation through the cork takes place and that screwcaps will hurt aging, with no oxygen allowed into the bottle. Myth only, because wine aging is a reductive, not oxidative process, and because in correctly corked bottles the only oxygen ever present is there to begin with, dissolved interstitially in the wine.

Oxygen is not the agent of normal bottle maturation. When a wine ages in the bottle, the oxidation-reduction potential decreases regularly until it reaches a minimum value, depending on how well the bottle is sealed. Reactions that take place in bottled wine do not require oxygen. Professor Pascal Ribereau-Gayon, University of Bordeaux.


New packaging technologies from Germany (Vinolok) are investigating glass closures, for a higher-end look, recyclability and equivalent prices.

Although I normally live by the maxim, In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data, screwcaps for upper end pinots may soon make me wing-it without reams of aging data, especially when anecdotal information leads us to anticipate very positive results, including wines looking younger longer—and without Botox!

“Peter Pan” wines that take a little longer to grow up aren’t a bad thing, especially with little bottle-to-bottle variation and with an extended optimal drinking plateau. Especially with Pinot noir, which is normally built to reward early drinking anyway, extending aging potentials should be perfect. Fruit characters are retained, even while mature bottle characters begin to develop. As Penfolds’ chief winemaker remembered, old experimental screwcapped wines aged like wines in a really cold cellar.

There is indeed some irony that we wineries are slow to convert completely to screwcap on long aged wines, since they are the wines that need them the most to prevent oxidation and maintain fruit freshness, and provide the reductive environment for aging.

Long-aged wines will follow. The marketplace just needs to be educated to accept it as it comes. I view this move a little like going from vinyl to CDs in music. Even if we still have a turntable (read corkscrew) for romance and old time’s sake, we’ll seek digital purity in the long-run—startlingly bright and clear, as if in the concert hall, without scratches, hiss and warping in the sun.

Plus screwcaps are very easy to open.

By the Numbers:
Natural cork

5,400,000 acres of cork trees worldwide
13 billion corks used annually worldwide
>$1,300,000,000 value
900 million used in US
$0.65 average per cork price ($8/case) for Chehalem 2003 natural cork bottlings

June’s Wine Business Monthly, reporting on a survey of 150 US wineries:

Increase in use of synthetic closures, 26 to 31% over the last year
Five percent are using screwcaps, consistently increasing 1% per year over the last 3 years
Wine protection attributes of screwcaps rated highest of all closures
Natural cork far and away preferred by consumer, but screwcap acceptance is improving annually more than any other closure (1.7 to 2.2 to 2.6, on scale of 1 to 5)
Wineries considering using screwcaps for $10-14 wines, 40%; $14-25, 30%; and >$25, 25% (up from 18,18,15% respectively)—greater than all other closures than natural cork
2% of wines >$25 currently using screwcaps

Oddbins, the UK retailer will sell 40% of its wines in screwcap in 2005.

More than 8% of the wine market now uses non-cork closures, including screwcaps and synthetic corks.

In New Zealand and Australia it is estimated that 40% of all wineries use screwcaps.

In a Wine Spectator survey of 21,000 20% preferred screwcaps (up from 5% two years earlier)

Compared to cork, per Tyson Stelzer in Practical Winery, screwcap will extend red wines’ fruitful longevity by:

400%, Bill Seppelt, Southcorp
160%, Stephen Henschke, Henschke
200%, James Irvine, Eden Valley

Quotes Pro and Con
What is reasonable to winemakers is often sacrilegious to consumers, particularly those who do not know much about wine. Hearing a wine steward whisper “Excellent choice, sir” as he extracts the cork and hands it to you (to do what?), is a solemn event for the uninitiated. The cork is sacred, the screwtop profane. The wine is secondary. Frank Prial, 5/14/2003, New York Times.

There are still a number of issues open on the table. Without doubt, the main argument is over the issue of aging… Fred Dame, MS

We believe there is a value to the glamour and ritual of using a cork. Miguel Torres

Sources for more study:
"Screwed for Good," Tyson Stelzer, Practical Winery, July-August 2004