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.

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.

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.

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.