Drink
Reason enough
by Keith Stewart
My recently expressed disdain for screwcaps has attracted a reasonable amount of comment. No, I am not a snob or a Luddite, but I have three problems with screwcaps, and each of them provides me with more than enough reason to distrust their wholesale adoption by New Zealand winemakers.
First, there’s the claim by screwcap proponents that there is such a thing as cork-taint, which is their term for the spoilage of wine through its contact with a nasty-smelling/tasting chemical called TCA. This is not cork-taint, it is pollution. This it is what we are all lumbered with as a result of ill-considered applications of industrial chemistry in the recent past that have contaminated the global environment with organic chlorides. These have in turn led to the creation of TCA in the environment, where it contaminates water, fruit and meat, as well as wine.
Although it is true that corks are one of the vectors that pass TCA from the environment into wine, I have difficulty believing that it is a good idea to solve an environmental problem with the application of more heavy industry, in this case aluminium caps and plastic inners. Aluminium production is a major energy consumer and the plastic seals in the screwcaps are implicated in risks to humans and wildlife by way of endocrine disruptors.
Second, there is the closely related problem of the going to waste of the Mediterranean cork forest, one of the oldest sustainable human/natural environments on Earth. Yes, corks tainted with TCA are a problem, but not enough to consider destroying a whole, economically stable, environmentally diverse, balanced ecosystem in the name of reducing the risk of getting a poor bottle of wine. Especially as most of us are talking about a $14.95 (refundable if taken back) expense. As there are very few cork forests left, I can see no good reason for destroying one on the basis that our wine might taste better on odd occasions.
And while on the issue of money, the third reason for my distrust of the screwcap phenomenon is that those wine companies promoting them have done so with plenty of spin. What they don’t tell you is that by substituting screwcaps for corks they are saving a fortune: $730,000 a year in the case of a mid-sized New Zealand winery. Even if they are using screwcaps to produce better wine, that is only one, and perhaps not the principal, reason for their conversion.
Email: keith@sommnet.com
