Chateauneuf du Pape - Wines - Domaine André Brunel - Les Cailloux

Screwcap : advantages and drawbacks

Screwcap : advantages and drawbacks

The major defects, as described by screw-top critics, are mainly its lack of visual aesthetic (making a bottle of wine resemble a common bottle of hard liquor) and absence of the uncorking noise, synonymous of a certain upcoming pleasure.

There are, however, many advantages : no more risk of having a corked wine taste since there is no more cork, possibility of keeping bottles standing upright, hermetically sealed, allowing to keep wine longer once open.

But the question that still niggles specialists (and which will probably niggle them for a long time!) is how does a bottle with a screw top age?
Nothing is sure but it can nevertheless be supposed that a bottle capped with a cork (making for more aerated exchanges) can make the wine age quicker. The wine itself (without any exchange with the outside air) will age all the same! Remember the experiments from some years ago, when a bottle was put 100 m underwater, therefore totally deprived of any light or oxygen exchange …. The wine still aged!
It can therefore be assumed that wine with a screw top will age, but most probably at a slower rate than a corked top.

It’s also interesting to see that screw tops allow wines to both keep and age better than synthetic caps. 

For more information regarding this subject, you’ll find an article on the blog “miss glouglou”.

Published : 2013-11-05

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