From time to time, we get questions about why we use screw caps when most wine from California, Oregon, and Washington, for example, is packaged in bottles with cork closures.
Back in 2004 when we were making the decision about which kind of a bottle closure we were going to use, there were a lot of bad corks that were spoiling the wine they were supposed to protect. In fact, the estimate at the time was that about 8% of all bottles were “corked.” The result was wine that had an aroma ranging from dirty gym socks to wet dog to a definite barnyard scent. That is not what any wine drinker wants when they open a bottle.
What was happening was that cork producers, many of whom are in Portugal, were cleaning natural cork with chlorine-based solutions. Their intentions were good but the result was devastating. Various chlorine compounds got into the corks forming a chemical known as trichloroanisole (TCA) and this caused the cork to spoil the wine.
We saw that we had a chance to avoid all of these problems by using screw caps. Today, only some of our dessert wines use a T-top (a special kind of cork) and our seasonal novelty bottles use corks. 98% of our wine uses screw caps.
Screw caps were traditionally associated with cheap wine and were generally assumed to leave the wine only marginally protected from the elements. That image is not accurate because the screw cap includes a multi-layer plastic seal that can allow the wine to breathe much like cork does. In fact, today most wine made in New Zealand is packaged with screw caps, Australian white wines are usually packaged with screw caps, and a growing number of mid to high end California wines are also packaged with screw caps. For example, Plumpjack is one of the most expensive Cabernet Sauvignon wines made in the Napa Valley. They package 50% of each vintage with screw caps and the remainder with corks and have been doing so since 1997. Their screw capped Cab sells for about $200!
A lot has happened since 2004. For one thing, corks are no longer treated with chlorine-based solutions. For another, the cost of corks for wine bottles has skyrocketed! The cost of bottles regardless of whether they are designed for closure with corks or screw caps have increased but not as much as have corks.
The bottom line is that now we can package our wine in glass bottles with screw caps that cost about $0.12 vs. a cork that can cost $1.00 and a foil that costs another $0.25. The cost of the bottle is not impacted by the difference between cork finish and screw cap finish. We can focus on making and packaging wine that will be protected by the screw cap and save our customers the additional cost of corks and foils.
