View Full Version : Cork or screwtop?
Is there any real difference between these 2?
Does wine actually keep better with a cork?
And is it handy not to have bits of cork in your drink.
I dont really care what keeps the wine in the bottle as long as it tastes ok when opened, and, I dont keep wine left down for ages:lol:
I also like a decent wine and not the fizzy asti spumanti fizzy juice either!
Any pros and cons with cork/screwtop in the normal drinking of decent wine left for a max of a year before drinking.
Other than feeling really "blonde" trying to open a screwtop with a corkscrew..... didnt take the foil off first so never noticed...oops!
Its been bugging me for a while now and as we just got more wine in I have been noticing more screwtops creeping in!
Kevin Milkins
09-Jun-10, 00:18
I find the screw top more approachable when knocking the top off my second bottle, hick.,//];)
As KM points out it depends on which point in the evening, or morning, that you require to let your wine breathe.
Or how sloshed you are to control the shorksrwe.....crokshew....shcrewcrok......
...oh just open another box, their easier to work!
Not bothered as long as its three for a tenner at the Co-op.
If you blow in the bag and then cut open the corner you can usually get another glass or 1/2 glass of wine out.....:lol:
The cork will help a wine breath but a screw top will not.
George Brims
09-Jun-10, 01:32
A lot of the Australian wineries in particular are going to the screw tops because they're more reliable than corks. The amount of breathing through a real cork is minimal. Also a lot of wineries all over the world are using synthetic corks, to the extent that large areas in Spain where they used to manage the woods to produce the cork are now abandoned, leading to an ecological crisis of sorts.
As long as it doesn't cost too much I don't much care, though I do like that satisfying "pop".
The cork will help a wine breath but a screw top will not.
Poppycock! The cork might but the cork is nowadays covered with some sort of covering which is completely air tight.
i love poping the cork but screw tops are handy
I dont mind now if it has a cork or not,infact one of my favourites at the moment is a quite expensive wine,that surprisingly has a screwtop,very handy though! x
Cork allows the wine to mature in a different way to the modern selvin/ screw top.
If a wine needs to be laid and mature in a bottle, then the cork allows the wine to breath and softens the tannins that are present.
Screw tops are fine for wine that does not need this process and is often better for white wines that are intended to be drunk young.
After several years of research, the consensus seems to be that red wine such as a classic Bordeaux will only achieve the complexity that makes it so famous is by using cork.
With so many wines mass produced and ready for bottling in a short period then a reliable alternative was sought as for many years there was a world wide shortage of quality cork.
Real corks are pretty much crap. EVERY bottle of spoiled wine I have had over the past 30 years has had a real cork. I have NEVER had a spoiled wine with a screw top or synthetic cork. Talk of cork letting wine breath is pretty much nonsense in my experience. If the wine is "breathing" out, then the air must also be "breathing" into the bottle. It is the ingress of air that makes the wine "corked", a term some people think refers to pieces of cork in the wine, but is actually the bad taste due to being exposed to the atmosphere via a crap cork. Screw tops are magic, if frowned upon by buffs/traditionalists. You get lovely fresh wine every time and you don't have to worry about a corkscrew. Winos the world over, please rejoice at the screw top and anyone with arthritis please feel free to do likewise.
Cork allows the wine to mature in a different way to the modern selvin/ screw top.
If a wine needs to be laid and mature in a bottle, then the cork allows the wine to breath and softens the tannins that are present.
Screw tops are fine for wine that does not need this process and is often better for white wines that are intended to be drunk young.
After several years of research, the consensus seems to be that red wine such as a classic Bordeaux will only achieve the complexity that makes it so famous is by using cork.
With so many wines mass produced and ready for bottling in a short period then a reliable alternative was sought as for many years there was a world wide shortage of quality cork.
I've read a fair bit about the points you mention Lizz but I've also read that much that is written regarding fine wines is a product of the imagination of those who like to sell wines at about £18,000 a bottle. I recall a guy on news at ten some years ago opening a bottle of claret from a rare vintage at around that price, only to find it was totally rank. There is a lot of snobbery and pretension in the wine world. A cork is either air tight or it isn't. I would have to doubt that we have the data on screw tops used with fine wines, going back far enough, to make a true judgement on whether they are as effective as cork at letting a wine mature. I highly doubt that many of the elite vineyards would contemplate firing a manky screw top on a bottle of their nectar.
Should wine bottles be made of glass?
Some local wine here is very popular with the sailing fraternity and it comes in a plastic bottle. It certainly is a lot safer than glass and you can fling the new style bottles around with abandon.
But if you have too much to drink and hit a reef and are on the rocks the issue becomes which bottle is best to contain a message of help to be flung into the water - glass or plastic?
Advice, please.
Further to the use of plastic bottles for wine - the Ontario product was called NIGHT RAIDER and featured a racoon on the label. "Get it before he does" was the advertising slogan.
The experts on a panel (see below ) found one could make excellent shrimp linguini using the Raider. But drinking it was another matter...However the plastic bottles captured the imagination of at least one taster.
See below:
In response to the comment about Night Raiders: It is not an ontario wine and would not be even considered, i'm sure. Night Raiders is made from imported and domestic wines and is more of a value brand. For 7.50 a bottle, it's not bad. Especially the cabernet. Either way, it has now been discontinued.
I wouldn't dismiss a wine for being in a plastic bottle, Research has shown that wine ages as well in a plastic bottle as it does in glass, plastic is lighter (10 lbs lighter per case), reducing the transportation cost and is more easily recycled than traditional glass bottles.
There was some research done by The Bordelais when stelvin closures came into use in the late 90s.
They monitored wine laid down over a ten year period under identical conditions and found that the bottles with the closures were not maturing in any thing like the same way and the structure of the complex blend that goes into most was not emerging.
Unfortunately, having retired I do not have the various articles to hand to quote from but found the findings of great interest being very partial to a St Emillion when the funds permit.
I quite agree that there is too much snobbery in the wine world, at the end of the day it is what you enjoy and find palatable that matters regardless of cost.The classic example being Burgundy which at best can be thin and at worst a complete waste of money where reds are concerned.
Boozeburglar
09-Jun-10, 19:58
Or Buckfast, my favourite.
Have to admit, regardless of all the research etc. I prefer a real cork. Just seems more organic. Then again I prefer brown paper bags rather than plastic ones too. :)
Or Buckfast, my favourite.
Have to admit, regardless of all the research etc. I prefer a real cork. Just seems more organic. Then again I prefer brown paper bags rather than plastic ones too. :)
They are a lot easier to chew.
George Brims
09-Jun-10, 21:08
Night Raiders is made from imported and domestic wines and is more of a value brand. For 7.50 a bottle, it's not bad.
$7.50 a bottle is not that great value. You can get decent stuff in California for $2! And the tax on whisky is much lower so I can get a litre bottle of Grants for $12.99 and Glenfiddich for $25, 10YO Macallan for $30. Do you wonder I've stayed here this long?
Boozeburglar
09-Jun-10, 21:18
Yeah, but you have to put up with terrible beer!
:)
George Brims
09-Jun-10, 21:21
No we don't. I leave the Budweiser and Coors in the shop and buy Samuel Adams, Anchor Steam or Sierra Nevada. Of course I can also get Guinness, Bass, or Newcastle in most bars, and they even have Belhaven at my local supermarket (overpriced though).
Boozeburglar
09-Jun-10, 21:27
Right enuff, things have moved on!
Still, you have to put up with those dippy accents.
I win!
:)
Ontario is no model for how to run a liquor store. It must have been created by the same hathcet-faced accountants responsible for the Hudson Bay Company - the principle function of liquor being as a tool for grabbing the land of intoxicated First Nations.
When I first came here the bottles were hidden away and stored by number.
You were given little scraps of notepaper and a stub of pencil with which you wrote the number that corresponded with the label of your choice.
A huge, pot bellied, ex policeman would take your pitiful missive and disappear into the recesses, returning with a brown paper bag. He would open it and flash it, with a look of withering contempt.
Later, over dinner someone might say "good claret" and we would reply that's the "217Y5" - a fine vintage!
Then everything changed and there were mock Tudor pubs everywhere.
I wont even get into the problem with "ladies and escorts......."
Ok just noticed you can get wine in cartons ... like the ones you get for fruit juice.
So far on the list is
real cork
plastic cork
screwtop
bag/box
carton
those wee tins for 1 glass
oh and did someone mention plastic bottle?
Don't care as long as I can get at the contents! Hic! :eek:
northener
11-Jun-10, 19:23
Ontario is no model for how to run a liquor store. It must have been created by the same hathcet-faced accountants responsible for the Hudson Bay Company - the principle function of liquor being as a tool for grabbing the land of intoxicated First Nations.
When I first came here the bottles were hidden away and stored by number.
You were given little scraps of notepaper and a stub of pencil with which you wrote the number that corresponded with the label of your choice.
A huge, pot bellied, ex policeman would take your pitiful missive and disappear into the recesses, returning with a brown paper bag. He would open it and flash it, with a look of withering contempt.
Later, over dinner someone might say "good claret" and we would reply that's the "217Y5" - a fine vintage!
Then everything changed and there were mock Tudor pubs everywhere.
I wont even get into the problem with "ladies and escorts......."
We used to dock in Reykjavic many years ago.
At that time, for some wierd reason full-strength beer was illegal. All you could get in tinnies was some 1-2% proof pish. And there were no pubs.
Yet at about half past ten on a nightime all the nightclubs would open..they would sell wines and spirtits...but again, no 'proper' beer.
But Her Majesties' warships carry lots of it..and we had usually got 'dry' USN warships with us as well. Mucho bartering, mucho bartering.
We got sick of coming home with hand-knitted Icelandic jumpers and constantly eating huge steaks and burgers.:Razz
In the interests of science and for the general improvement of mankind, tonight I shall be embarking of some research.........
I have opened a bottle of red, 'twas corked and is currently having a breathe and warming up. (itsa coats du somefink)
In the meantime I have opened a couple of bottles of becks, traditional cap top stylee.
We have in reserve both screwtop & corked bottles of red and if things get desperate there is 5ltrs of petrol (that was assigned for the mower) in one of those thingymebobs with a screw cap.
I will keep you informed of my findings.
northener
11-Jun-10, 22:16
In the interests of science and for the general improvement of mankind, tonight I shall be embarking of some research.........
I have opened a bottle of red, 'twas corked and is currently having a breathe and warming up. (itsa coats du somefink)
In the meantime I have opened a couple of bottles of becks, traditional cap top stylee.
We have in reserve both screwtop & corked bottles of red and if things get desperate there is 5ltrs of petrol (that was assigned for the mower) in one of those thingymebobs with a screw cap.
I will keep you informed of my findings.
I have just nailed three bottles of 'Red Rooster' from Alloa brewery followed by a bottle of Marques de Carano rioja.
Three bottle tops and a cork. The rioja benefitted from a hours breathing, methinks. The Roosters would have died given that.
Does this have any bearing on the cork/screwtop argument? absolutely none.
But when I'm sober I'll lecture you all on the benefits of cork.
OK.
My sereachesses is goon goind....goog goind.....yersshee.
I hhavvv had to rshhort to s shcrewtap.
Foor roses and a pepshoe maxi.
Some good an funny posts- most of it all wind an piss of course, what would anyone want to be doing sipping on that incipient tripe, when there is abundantly available- old pultney out there. ;)
bluechesse
12-Jun-10, 19:34
The answer to this is simple. In the hoose, you want the cork. After the first glass you can pull it out with your teeth, there by looking really cool in front of the missus.
But, when doon the river side, sharing a bottle of fortified antifreeze with your mates behind the boating shed, I find a screw cap is much more convienient.
It's all about your location really.
I work in a hotel and think all hotelier should buy screw tops as it make my life much easier :confused , canna be arsed with this cork crac .I always break it in the bottle then i gotta pretend i know what i am doing use my body as a shield to hide what a cock up i have made and hope that the rest of the cork doesn't land in the bottle allways blocking the customer view with a smile that says ur lovely wines on it way :lol: with a few floaties in it :eek:
This evening I am furthering my research, tonight I am on a screwtop.
Oyster Bay Merlot.
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