Among wine writers, it’s widely understood that you don’t bash a producer because one of his wines is “corked.”
The attitude is: TCA (a nasty cork-contaminating substance) happens. If that gets into the product, it’s not the winery’s fault. Foul luck, old chap. Bad bottle.
That’s starting to change.
After conducting a four-year study of various bottle-closing devices, Hogue Cellars of Washington state announced this summer that it will convert 70 percent of its wine production this year to Stelvin screw caps.
Eventually, it hopes to jettison corks for all its wines, chief winemaker David Forsyth said.
Hogue apparently will become the largest U.S. producer of premium wines under screw caps–more than 300,000 cases out of a production of 500,000 cases.
The Washington winery follows a handful of smaller American pioneers in adopting screw caps–notably California’s Bonny Doon and its Ca’ del Solo affiliate; Oregon’s Argyle; California’s Kendall-Jackson’s Robert Pepi winery and Napa Valley’s PlumpJack, which sells $150 cabernet sauvignons with twist-off tops.
In Australia and New Zealand, screw caps have become commonplace for bottling fruity whites such as riesling and sauvignon blanc. The results are excellent. The giant Penfolds winery recently announced it will convert its Koonunga Hill wines–red and white–to screw caps for the Australian market. (Not the U.S. market. The folks at Penfolds apparently think Americans are a bit slow.)
Even in tradition-encrusted Bordeaux, corks are crumbling. Last month, winery owner Andre Lurton announced he would release 2003 wines from three prestigious chateaux–Couhins-Lurton, Bonnet and La Louviere–with screw caps.
It’s time for the rest of the world to follow. Every winery from Gallo to Chateau Petrus should have a no-TCA strategy in the works. The problem of contaminated corks is bad, getting worse and not going away.
On my kitchen counter sit two bottles of wine opened in the past two weeks–both full except for the one glass that was quickly dumped down the sink.
One was a pinot grigio from an excellent high-end California producer; the other was a chardonnay from a leading Washington state winery (not Hogue). Both were undrinkable because of bad corks.
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The screw cap has proved to be a superior closure in extensive tests in Australia and New Zealand. Hogue’s testing merely confirms those results but is valuable nevertheless. Americans tend to distrust research conducted on foreign soil.
Hogue is moving forward this year to bottle what it calls its Fruit Forward wines–reds and whites costing about $10–under screw caps.
In what Forsyth realizes is an anomaly, Hogue will continue for now to bottle its more expensive Genesis and Reserve wines under the traditional but inferior closure.
“We’ve got our eyes on them too,” he said.
The challenge facing Hogue and other producers is a public perception that corks are a sign of sophistication, quality and romance.
Screw caps carry a stigma from decades past. Forsyth said consumers see them as a cost-saving effort by the winery rather than a step forward.
Forsyth said the burden will be on wineries to persuade a skeptical public.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale ([email protected]) and alBerto Trevino ([email protected])