THEY have been villified since their association with Blue Nun and Lambrusco, but screw caps are enjoying a comeback as the smart man’s bottle stopper. Over the past year or so you may have noticed their prominence on supermarket shelves, not only on cheap bottles of spruced-up vinegar, but also on special-occasion vino.
The reason for this new-found popularity lies in the failures of old-fashioned corking. According to the Wine and Spirit Association, 1.2 per cent of wine bottles develop TCA mould, which results in "corked" wine; unofficial estimates put this figure
much higher, at around one in ten.
With so many bottles being returned in restaurants or supermarkets, the wine producers have had to take action, bringing in the more consistent, Stelvin cap.
Introduced in the 1950s, this Saran-wrapped tin cap has a hidden foam liner which creates a neutral, airtight seal. Easy to open, its main advantage is it preserves the wine in its original state - which means wine merchants get improved customer satisfaction.
But, as the epitome of cheap wine, the screw cap is struggling to find acceptance among wine connoisseurs. Top hotels and restaurants have rejected it on account of its bad reputation and lack of ceremony. The cork producers themselves are - not surprisingly - unhappy with the screw cap’s resurgence. Almost all - 99 per cent - of the world’s corks orginate in the Mediterranean region, with around 52 per cent coming from Portugal. Cork production forms a significant portion of the local economy there, and in some villages up to 80 per cent of people depend on cork for income.
As the wine merchants encourage the phasing out of corks, these people are beginning to feel the strain on their livelihood.
Industry experts estimate that within the next ten years up to a third of our wine bottles will be fitted with alternative closures. With such aesthetic and economic objections this remains to be seen, but the screw cap revolution has most certainly arrived.
