Screwcap revolution - Wine Not

For some it’s an art form some even say a party trick to open a bottle under cork, for others quite the time-consuming struggle. Cue the revolution of the screwcap. With a seamless turn of the top you can have your wine in mere seconds. More than that there are other benefits that come with the convenience of the screwcap. It has been said that the effects of trichloroanisole (TCA) , an organic compound like fungus, is less present in wines with a screw-cap which leads to oxidation vs it’s cork-enclosed counterpart. Many believe that screw caps eliminate the problem, or at least minimize it.

Volcanic Hills Winery, New Zealand

How it started? Numerous vintners in Australia and New Zealand found that a great quantity of their wines would spoil under defective cork which led to investigating the usage of cork vs screw-cap. Australia’s Clare Valley started the revolution by bottling their Riesling under screw-cap, leading New Zealand and then the rest of the new-world industry to follow suit after a successful run locally. Both new-world countries, mostly bottle their White and Pinot noir and Shiraz wines under screwcap. Australia however, is the first country to turn to the screwcap almost exclusively since the year 2000, read more about one of my favorite Australian wineries here. Despite the modern wine bottle closure’s success, cork remains the most common closure used around the world due to age-old traditions of old-world winemakers, as well as taking into consideration the preferences of their loyal consumers.

Enjoying a screw cap Pinot Noir at Audrey Wilkinson Winery

The most-used argument for cork is that it is better suited for a wine that needs to be aged. However, it is also found that screwcaps age just as well. There is a common misconception of screw cap wines being inferior to their cork sealed counter-parts. A lot of this has to do with the old-world influence, this making the wine industry on a global scale slow to change.
Marketing wine in the age of social media and influencers has made the modern wine bottle closure of screw caps rather enticing and trendy to the younger crowd.

Acclaimed winery Wild Earth, produces only screw cap wines

With that in mind here are a few of our New Zealand and Australian wines that we stock for you to purchase to taste for yourself and see that there really isn’t any difference in taste and experience.