A good article written by Jamie Goode over on WineAnorak prompted by the BBCs new TV programme called Cork,Forest in a bottle. The basic premise of the article is that cork is a wonderful natural product with a current problem (TCA). This resulted in the inevitible rise in popularity of alternative closures which , in turn, has forced the cork industry to make huge inroads into solving this issue. Corks are fighting back !
The fact of the matter is that if screwcaps did exactly the same job as cork then of course we would all be using them. They dont and cannot. The interesting point surrounding corks is their ability to aid in the bottle development of wine via the interaction with air. Not air from the outside but from the compressed cells within the cork itself. There is some semi-technical but really interesting reading on the subject over on AppelationAmerica here and here dispelling the myth that corks 'breathe'.
1 comment:
Wow. now that's new! But the good news is, that I have met a guy who had built up a system to measure the Gas-Diffusionrate of closures from outside of the bottle to the inside. Best was of corse a screwcap with a saran tin liner. Then the screwcap with a saranex. Then there is a big difference between dry, wet, smoothed, lubricated natural corks. Worst of all were plastic corks.
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