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America 'baffled' by screwcaps
June 8, 2007
Howard G Goldberg in New York
While screwcaps are being used increasingly, America's wine industry is baffled about their future.
Depending on who is asked, screwcaps are 'poised on the edge of phenomenal success' or are 'comfortably settling into a niche status,' according to Wine Business Monthly's annual closure research.
'The most adventurous and savviest wine consumers have seemingly embraced the closure, while traditional and less wine-educated consumers still seem unsure of what to do,' the California trade publication said.
Its survey of 237 domestic and foreign wineries showed that respondents using screwcaps increased from 5% in 2004 to 25% in 2007, the publication reported.
The Nielsen Company, which tracks supermarket wine, found the number of brands offering at least one screwcapped wine jumped to 214 from 120 in the nine months to December 2006.
Sales of screwcapped whites more than double those of reds and 'imports comprise more than two-thirds of the total segment,' the monthly said. 'Most screwcapped wines are purchased between $8 and $11.99.'
Although spoiled corks still beset wineries, the 'perception of natural corks as a good value' has made a significant gain, the monthly reported.
Howard Goldberg discusses screwcaps in the Stateside section of this month's Decanter magazine, on sale now
Have your say...
To post your comment on this story, email us at news@decanter.com, making sure the relevant headline is in the subject field
 Part of the problem is that consumers are not being educated about the benefits of screwcaps and the issues with cork. Some of that lies with the wine press who do not cover the issue well enough.
Tony
Having just opened two contaminated bottles in two days, my perception of “corks as natural closures” is that they offer a gamble—and one that I'm tired of losing on.
Brian St. Pierre
Outright taint may be the main, most obvious and most frequently occurring problem caused by TCA-contaminated natural corks, but, as regular wine drinkers know all too well, it's not the only one that's cork-related: so-called "random oxidation" and "bottle variation" are two others that I find almost as infuriating and frustrating as straight-out TCA taint (and surely I'm not the only one?). I think Americans (and not just Americans!) would be less "baffled" by screwcaps if wine merchants (who are in the front line after all) were more engaged in pro-active consumer education, simply by offering regular informal tastings of good-quality screwcapped wines - including, however, and as strange as it may sound, various corked bottles, since I'm quite certain many less-experienced wine drinkers are simply unsure of themselves when identifying cork taint in the first place (it can, after all, be insidiously subtle, occasionally sneaking past even extremely experienced tasters, as we know). And it wouldn't do any major harm to merchants' profit margins (on the contrary, more likely) if they even included the odd premium screwcapped wine in such tastings. That said, I have to say I prefer the new glass cork now being used more and more widely in Germany: it does the same job as the screwcap (sidestepping cork taint, not to mention my nemesis, the dreaded "bottle variation"), but it looks classier, more elegant. And, like the screwcap, it's very easily re-sealable. One other possible explanation for the persistent (perverse?) attachment in the USA to wines sealed with natural corks: sheer affluence ("who cares if this particular bottle is corked, since there are plenty left in the cellar").
Gregory Sims, Berlin, Germany
I recently opened 3 bottles of the same wine, a Cabernet-Merlot blend from the 2003 vintage. Two were bad, one with cork taint and the other with some fault that had the wine tasting acrid. I am fully in support of use of the screw cap closure, especially for wine meant to be comsumed within 3 to 5 years. Otherwise, who needs the aggravation?
Vin Greco
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