42.6% Of Wine Professionals Prefer Screwcap Wine To Corks At Home!
An amazing statistic wouldn’t you say? As part of a longer discussion over at Wine Sediments (a new wine blog with multiple contributors), this figure comes from a study done by Balzac Communications for the Portuguese Cork Association. What was the headline Balzac used for the study? U.S. Consumers Give Cork the Seal of Approval; Nine Out of Ten Customers Think Non-Cork Closures Cheapen Wine, Survey Says.
An interesting headline when you consider that those surveyed are trade professionals and not Joe Customer from the corner wine shop. Interesting too that the headline came from data that simply says 94% of the 300 or so professionals surveyed “think that non-cork closures sometimes or often cheapen a bottle of wine.” Mark Fischer from the Dayton Daily News shoots gaping holes into this marketing cheese.
My thoughts on the subject are simple. Screwcaps are here to stay: TCA is a thing of the past, resealable wine is great for couples and singles, it’s easy to open, and refreshingly non-pretentious.
But corks are here to stay as well: the nostalgia, the breathing that assists with ageing, and those Laguioles corkscrews - just lovely.
One thought about why people may think of screwcapped wine as being cheaper than bottles sealed with corks is because it’s true. A lot of the wineries I have seen switching to screwcaps do so on their cheaper line first. They’re probably testing the waters to see if people respond differently to the switch. So, most of the screwcap bottles you see on store shelves are at the lower end of the price range, and there’s nothing wrong with that in my book. I guess the water feels pretty good, as I’m seeing more and more of these closures on store shelves, at increasingly higher price points.
Chalk another win up for screwcaps. (This has motivated me to add a screwcap category to this blog. Enjoy!)
March 10th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
You know, I’m still very new to this, but I don’t mind a screwcap at all - especially on “drink now” sorts of wines. Last summer we bought a mid-range priced (and quite tasty) chardonnay at Plumpjack in Napa. They gave us a choice - did we want the cork or the screwcap. I thought that was pretty neat, and we took the screwcap. However, I was also surprised. I figure there was a fair amount of bottling expense that went into two different types of bottles. (I’m currently creating technical documentation for a bottle & glass company and can tell you that each bottle requires a different type of mold and furnace run.) Anyway, just my two cents, if that.
March 12th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
The winemaker at RH Phillips and I had this same cordial discussion last year when they announced their shift to screwcaps. I told him that screwcaps have the romance and character of … let’s see… a screwcap. Where’s the ritual of the bottle opening - the neat corkscrews, the lovely soft pop of the cork, the sniffing, the color and crystals on the red wine cork, and so on.
He responded that 10% of RH Phillipps wines are lost to cork disease (others say it’s an 8% loss). I’ve been tasting wine seriously for 30 years and have run into cork only twice. So I wonder about that stat.
Anyway, long live corks - even artificial ones. They are essential to my enjoyment of wine.
March 14th, 2006 at 9:14 am
John,
You’re right, I haven’t really experienced that much cork taint either. Corks are here to stay, as many consumers share your same sentiments about the ritual, etc. However, I consider it kind of silly that the Portugese Cork Association (or APCOR) hired a firm to try and blast screwcaps while making corks look good. What are they afraid of?
As Michelle points out, screwcaps are great on drink now types of wines. Why try and make them look bad? I love both closures, but they both have their pros and cons.
Michelle,
A winery in Napa (Plumpjack?) sells their reserve Cabernet in two bottle lots, one with a screwcap, the other with a cork, and they still sell out of them every year. Looks like people don’t mind having a choice even on high-end wine.
As far as expense goes, I do believe it is more cost efficient to use screwcaps. Maybe that helps reduce the cost of two bottling lines.
March 28th, 2006 at 10:41 am
[...] The dynamic duo is at it again, with a new press release that highlights the recent anti-competitive law miraculously passed at the end of 2005, banning alternative closures from being used on any wines from 11 regions in Spain. If any winery in those regions chooses to use an alternative closure, they will not receive Denominación de origen status, essentially making it illegal to use anything other than cork. The law affects wines made in the 11 Catalan D.O.s including Catalunya, Costers del Segre, Montsant, Pla de Bages, Tarragona, Alella, Conca de Barbera, Emporda, Penedes, Terra Alta and Priorat. [...]
April 12th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
The question I always ask people is to reverse the sequence. Let’s say that screwcaps had been the standard closure for hundreds of years. The seal was almost perfect, opening the bottle was convenient and required no special tools, and it was easy to reseal the bottle. Now someone announces a new enclosure, one that seals imperfectly and occasionally causes the wine to be tainted (let’s say even 5% of the time), requires a special tool and some exertion to open it, and is difficult to reseal. What would you say?
The romance is all about tradition. I am sure that when cork was discovered as a good seal there were people who prefered resin seals because of tradition. But I buy wine because I love to smell and drink it, not to evaluate whether the cork is the one intended for the bottle (the original reason they started presenting the cork to the patron because of unscrupulous 19th century Bordelais, not to sniff it) or to hear it pop. I can have sparkling wine if I want pop.
My experience does not tell me that 10% are corked, but the number is probably between 5% and 10%. Store an expensive Burgundy, save it for a special tasting, then get a wine that has no aroma and tastes like a wet rag and that is a bigger downer than losing the sound of the pop. In fact, many wines’ taint is more subtle, and is generally attributed to the winery instead of the seal. And thus the consumer may never buy that wine again.
Plumpjack, Bonny Doon, and the rest have it right. Between that and boxes, we will eventually have consistently good quality of wine without any danger of it being bad because of packaging.
April 13th, 2006 at 9:58 am
Morris,
Well put! Reversing the scenario definitely puts things into prospective.
However, I’m not sold on boxes yet. Time for me to suck it up and buy one. I’m a firm believer in “don’t knock it until you try it’, and the new box wines seem to be a far cry from their white zin refrigerator predecessor’s from the 80’s.