Darn, I was looking forward to telling somebody to shut up, i.e. to put some kind of stopper in it.
It has little to do with politics, and more to do with a unique and irreplaceable ecosystem, biodiversity which could never be replicated including many endangered species, not to mention families who’ve been farming those same forests since before America was born. Find out something before making silly statements. Even if it was to do with politics (which you haven’t mentioned at all, btw; you’ve mentioned economics), why the hell shouldn’t Portugal have a problem with one of its major industries being pushed under by lazy fucks who can’t be bothered to find a corkscrew? This Iberian lynx, one of only about 150 individuals left, would thank you for continuing to use cork, I’m sure. Look, it has kittens! In a spare bit of cork!*
I have drunk wine all my life (a much more European upbringing, from what I understand: literally from childhood. No, I am not an alcoholic), from the cheapest kind in the plastic bottle up to the kind of wine you get in the paper for if you buy more than one bottle, and I have never, not once, had a corked bottle. It’s really not that much of a problem, especially now that they’ve identified exactly what caused it and made changes to the cork production process to eliminate it.
*No? Not persuaded by the cute either? Huh.
Agreed. Quality control and modern bottling techniques are still so poor that every customer has to do a spoilage verification at the table?
My servers do not present their fingernails for inspection, lift up the tablecloth to prove the underside is fungus free, remove the acoustic tiles and wait for my confirmation of asbestos absence, nor show me their armpits are free of bubonic swellings.
Why the hell do they still insist on giving me the cork?
Would you like to smell the cap?
Do you do everything in your life just as fast as you can? If not, why not?
Opening a corked bottle is still a small and simple act–but making it a touch more involved, a touch slower, gathers a little meaning to the moment, sets it apart, and enhances what follows.
I bought one of those hand-pump vacuum system deals a while back so I wouldn’t feel bad if I didn’t finish the bottle of wine. Of course what actually happened, is that it made it so I didn’t feel bad about opening the next one!
Other than referring to tequila, añejo is also a term that can be used to refer to aged Spanish wines. Nava was using it in this sense. The word itself basically just means “old” or “aged.”
I think the handpumps are a lot of hooey. We use a pourer in our bottles- a flexible, circular piece of foil that eliminates the “glug glug” when pouring. We also tend to buy magnums, and never re-cork (or re-cap) any of our bottles. We just keep the pourer in the neck and keep whites in the downstairs fridge, and reds on the counter. We picked up this practice from our French friends who own a winery. I figure if it’s a practice that works for them, it works for me.
Sure it will work for a day or two. But the vacuum stopper will work for up to a week. On some wines you won’t notice the difference but on most you will. But, seriously, if it works for you that’s fine by me.
:dubious:
The industry standard for corked bottles is what it’s been for at least 20 years- about 5% of all bottles. Do you have cites for your claim that they’ve figured it out exactly and changed the production process?
Cork is an odor that is easily recognizable if you know what it is, but if you are not familiar with it, you might easily just pass up a corked bottle as not to your taste. It’s not like a piece of rotten meat or anything that bad. I’ve pointed out corked wines to people who don’t regularly drink wine, and they would have never picked up the flaw in the wine, they just thought the wine, like many others they’d tried, just wasn’t all that great.
I sample between 5 and 15 bottles a week, and I’d say I find a corked bottle at least 6-8 times a year. Heck, I had a corked bottle on Easter Sunday! It’s definitely something that’s an issue, and not all that rare.
I’ve used the vacuum stopper for a long time, and it does preserve the wine for a while. But the #1 thing that will make your wine last is to put it in the fridge - both reds and whites. Just stick the cork back in and put it in the fridge, it’ll keep for many days that way.
I used to vacuum and then put in the fridge, but I honestly couldn’t tell a difference between the fridged & vacuumed and just fridged wines, so I just fridge 'em now.
Bah-dum-bum … 
I used to work at a fairly nice spirits boutique (that’s “liquor store” to you heathens, but really, it was a LOT nicer than yer average liquor store) and we quietly roll our eyes at customers who turn down a recommendation solely because the wine is screw-top.
One of the guys who worked there knew more about wine than any human being has any right to** and even he concurred with the eye-rolling.
That said, one glorious afternoon I had one customer - ONE - who had a very legitimate reason to turn down any recommendation that involved screw tops. She whipped a photo out of her purse to show me: she is slowly but surely insulating her attic with wine corks. Thousands of them, neatly lined up. She told me friends from all over mail her the corks.
On a semi-related note, there’s some Austrian wine called Berger that’s closed with a crown cap (like beer).
** For fun, he and his buddies would blind-taste-test wine, and then quiz each other … not on the varietal used or even what country it came from, but what REGION of what country … FOR FUN!
Your lifelong drinking of wine notwithstanding, your assertions about corked wine suggest that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Athena, here is Wiki, I’m afraid, but it’s late and I have an early meeting. Perhaps “exactly what caused it” was a bit sweeping, but it is generally to do with TCA, and they have improved production and hygiene standards. I can’t give you the cite I was thinking of, as it was a BBC documentary about Portugal and I have no idea how to find it. If you’re interested I can try to find it tomorrow. I have a feeling it was more of a nature doc than actually about wine, but went into the practical uses of cork as well as the fauna and flora of the forest. (On a total side note, I must mention that the cork forests are among the most beautiful places I have ever been to in my life.)
If you’re sampling wine for a living, then yes, you are going to try more variety of bottles than a normal drinker, but I’m not someone who doesn’t regularly drink wine. I’d say we pretty much have a bottle open all the time, we’re pretty adventurous in what we drink (varieties, methods and places of production) and I consciously try to buy wine with proper corks.
(Averaging your consumption at ten bottles a week, that’s 520 a year, call it 500 for weeks off/light days, even 8 corked bottles a year isn’t even close to 5 percent. It’s less than 2. Or is my maths even worse than I thought it was?!)
Whoa. I’m at work, but boy howdy is there a lot to reply to in this thread.
There are quite a few wineries out there putting wines meant for aging under screwcaps. My husband and I just drank a 2001 Plumpjack Reserve Cab Sauv last month that was simply amazing. Assuming it was bottled in say 03 or 04, that’s at the very least 5 years under screwcap.
Booka, I have experienced a corked wine. It was at a wine tasting. However, in my own personal consumption of wine, I’ve never had a corked bottle. Is that clearer? Why is it so hard to believe? I’ve never found a rotten egg either, if it helps.
I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around “left-over wine.” I’ve never used those words before in that particular combination. 
Economics does play a huge role, there is no doubt about it. Portugal produces half of the world’s corkand cork is a major production for the country.
I know what article or piece you are talking about that claimed damage to the cork forests and the poor lynx due to consumers acceptance of screw caps.
It was a campaign a few years ago funded by the leading cork producer in Portugal. They had teamed up with WWF and a couple of other firms to ‘save the trees!’ which as far as I know, weren’t in any danger to begin with. They might have been just a wee bit biased.
This post has left me baffled.
Early phases of aging and mechanical closure…I have no idea what this is even supposed to mean. Actually, on second thought, maybe it’s referring to crown caps on sparkling wines, but I’m still not sure. Help?
High quality cork and a bottle stored on its side will prevent corking? That’s just not true. TCA can and does affect the highest grades of cork, and it doesn’t matter one bit how the bottle was stored.
Vintners not following proper cork harvesting practices? Not possible, as vintners don’t harvest cork, they harvest grapes. They buy cork from cork producers, who buy from the forest owners, who are no fools when it comes to harvesting their cash cow (wine closures.) Only the finest grades of bark are used for closures and just about everything else made out of cork is made using waste from that process or what was deemed not good enough, virgin harvest, etc.
And again with the poor handling and storage leading to a corked wine. No, that’s just not how TCAworks.
I drink wine almost every day. I encounter about a case or so of corked wines a year. Say 300 bottles of wine a year, with 15 corked, to make it easy. That’s about 5%, which sounds about right to me. All in varying degrees - some are only slightly tainted, those I might drink anyway after a quick ‘plastic bath’, some are so bad I don’t even put the wine to my lips, I just dump it immediately.
While this is true, “quite a few” doesn’t facilitate “lots” or “many”. I don’t have any particular objections to screwcaps, and I honestly believe the jury is still out on them WRT bottle ageing versus cork closures. A huge wine like that Plumpjack Reserve Cab you mention could withstand 5 years in a mason jar and would have been fine if stored under ideal conditions.
What I believe is NEVER going to happen is to get traditionalists like the classified Bordeaux growers to convert. They are French and steeped in tradition. They would consider using them akin to calling a fizzy white wine from Vin De Pays d’Oc to be Champagne. It just won’t happen.
And at the prices en tranche that Bordeaux commands, I don’t blame them. What has worked for them has made them spectacularly rich. Not that I think 1st growth Bordeaux is worth the money…I generally don’t, even though they are superior wines. I suppose if I was rich I’d lay a case of Margaux down here and there, but sadly…no.