Cork stopper or screw cap?

Historically cork has been ideal to seal and conserve wine in bottles. Its porosity allows micro-oxygenation so the wine can evolve in the bottle. Therefore cork would be ideal for wines that require evolution.

The screw cap is manufactured with aluminium. It protects the wine from possible contamination and preserves the wines aromas and taste. The aluminium cap doesn’t allow the wine to change in any way, it doesn’t improve it either. Therefore it would be ideal for young wines that are made to be consumed relatively soon.

Culturally, in Spain at this moment we’re not very prepared for the screw cap, we link it to low quality wine, although it isn’t the case.

People pro-cork stoppers say that opening up a bottle with a corkscrew has something magic about it, something of a ritual. Detractors say that we have to be more practical. Screw cap doesn’t need a tool to open it up, and it opens easily. One of the problems with using cork is that it can suffer a deterioration therefore would transfer bad aromas and taste to the wine. This doesn’t happen to bottles that use screw caps.

My conclusion is that depending on the type of wine that is to be made, the maker should also choose its more adequate seal. Saying this, smaller wineries don’t have the budget that allows them to have two different bottling lines. They end up playing with the various cork qualities.

To be continued!