Cork or screw? Is the debate now closed?
Stelvin may be the last word – for now
Ian Hickinbotham
Ian Hickinbotham, author of Australian Plonky
The cork, as we know it, is still entrenched as a closure for wine bottles in the minds of older wine drinkers. But its near demise has been a recent phenomenon for a couple of decades, caused by what we define as 'cork taint'.
Our Australian Wine Research Institute initiated the alarm.The Institute got no thanks for its pioneering: in fact the Portuguese (who still grow about 70% of the world's cork) tended to dismiss their findings as something akin to colonial ramblings for attention. Then (at least initially), they spent their money on PR spin, even begging the wine industry to consider the jeopardy of the Iberian Fox that lives in the cork forests, before financing proper research into the problem. Whatever, cork quality has now greatly improved.
But, the Portuguese tardiness served as a fillip to the acceptance of alternative closures for wine bottles. Plastic 'corks' (it is also inadequate to define them as stoppers, as there are cork stoppers also, usually used on bottles of cheap fortified wines) quickly came to the fore, as an obvious alternative closure, but they do not seem to have succeeded.
According to Dr Jung* of the Geisenhem Institute, Germany, superior cork sealing quality is due to the cell structure on the outside of the cork working with a higher friction co-efficient due to cut cell structure coming in contact with the glass. (During manufacture, corks are cut from sheets of cork stripped from cork oak trees.)
Also, quality cork has a higher oxygen barrier than does plastic. Unbelievable as it may seem, when compressed, cork will take up the variations in the bottle mouth and fill the void. The compression of plastic tends to give uniform force against the glass, while generalising, de-moulding is its other undesirable feature.This means that after being compressed for insertion into the neck of a bottle, plastic stoppers tend to stay compressed when removed, whereas a cork, as everyone knows, tends to revert to its original larger shape, the most spectacular being a Champagne cork.
When in Russia, soon after the Cold War, 'Champagnski', as Russians called their sparkling white wine, was sealed with plastic stoppers. Apparently, it was the political environment of the time that prevented the Soviet winemakers obtaining cork supplies from Spain and Portugal.
Interestingly, in spite of internal bottle pressure, their sparkling wines slowly oxidised, due to the miniscule porosity of the polyethylene plastic of the time (and one of the laws of physics we learned at school).
The most successful new type of closure has undoubtedly been the screwcap and the Stelvin is entrenched in Australia, especially. From 1985, our family company used about 800,000 a year, but significantly on 200ml bottles for airlines. Because of the small volume of wine this innovation was a very severe test. Even so, though the Stelvin is a French invention (its success turns on the sealing ability of the material used to make the wad under the screwcap), except for recent enthusiasm for the closure by New Zealand winemakers, it has not enjoyed universal acceptance, even in France. In many countries it is still perceived to be a cheap and nasty closure, the same as the version used on cheap wines for decades.
Objectively, with increasing concern about limited world natural resources, the Stelvin and similar aluminium screwcaps will be superseded by some other type of bottle closure, because of the energy needed, especially electricity, to make the aluminium.
However, last weekend we drank the last bottle of a Riesling made from Tasmanian grapes sourced from the original Meadowbank estate. It was magnificent without the slightest yellowing of colour, even though 29 years old: sealed with a Stelvin screwcap!
* As advised by Troy Smith, Managing Director, Anthony Smith Australasia.
Ian Hickinbotham, one of the most innovative and influential oenologists in Australia over his 50 year career, is the author of Australian Plonky (see related review below).
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