Learning to love the screwtop wine bottle

By Michael Johnson

International Herald Tribune

BORDEAUX: When the world's wine industry gathers in Bordeaux in June for
Vinexpo 2007, one of the hottest topics will be the death of cork.
Screwtops have recently gained ground in New World wines and are now
coming to Europe, like it or not.

Corks are popping less and less, and it's happening faster than you
might think. Swiss wine leads with virtually 100 percent screwtop
bottling. In New Zealand, a major wine-producing country, 90 percent is
already screwcapped and making its way to market. Australia is at 60
percent, and California is not far behind.

Other producers - even the French - are beginning to see screwtops as
the future, although French distributors are resisting the change.

Two-week screwtop trials have been carried out recently at the
supermarket chain Carrefour in Paris, Lille and Bordeaux, says Bruno de
Saizieu, marketing and commercial director at Alcan Packaging Capsules,
the main producer of the screwtop. Consumers were happy with the change,
but the distributors still aren't sure, according to his research. Yet
worldwide, he says, screwtop capping has mushroomed from 300 million
bottles in 2003 to an estimated 2 billion bottles this year.

The French push back more than most. As one Michelin one-star
restaurateur in Bordeaux put it: "Okay for your average bistro, but
screwtops in my restaurant? Never." Only about 7 percent of French wine
is screwcapped.

The white wines of the Loire Valley and Alsace have started to shift but
the big reds of Burgundy and Bordeaux are just not interested. Chateau
d'Agassac in the Médoc has led the way but only caps 10 to 15 percent
with screwtops. Most of that goes for export, to countries where wine
culture is less rooted in the past.

Nevertheless, all indications are that the corked bottle is on its way
to the dustbin of history. "Things will evolve, but it will take more
time in France," says Jean-Luc Zell, managing director of Agassac. Italy
and Spain have also been slow to adapt.

Many wine lovers everywhere are aghast at the drift away from cork. The
screwtop has long been associated with cheap wines, so capping the
better labels with the metal closure can make them seem cheap too. De
Saizieu dismisses this factor: "Familiarity will breed acceptance," he
says.

For the ordinary consumer, the opposition is mainly about ritual. Isn't
half the satisfaction of having wine with a restaurant meal the mere act
of watching the waiter wrestle with the corkscrew, finally pop out the
cork, sniff it, then let you pronounce the wine drinkable? The process
has become so stylized that most wine drinkers forget they are testing
it for corkiness, not for its earthen tonalities.

All this ceremony disappears with the arrival of the screwtop, and a lot
of wine lovers and traditionalist growers are hoping to push back the
tide.

On a recent trip to Boston, I asked several restaurateurs what their
customers would say if suddenly their $75 Bordeaux arrived at the table
and glasses were filled after a swift twist of the wrist. "Not good,"
said Todd English, proprietor of the trendy Olives restaurant in Boston.
"It removes all the romance of wine."

Even Zell confesses the emotional arguments will be slow to fade away.
"Screwtops are better closures," he says, "but we will never be able to
duplicate the sound of a popping cork."

Dozens of studies have been launched in the past six or seven years to
try to resolve the debate over how best to cap wine. Screwtoppers cite
the faults of the cork. It is generally accepted within the industry
that about 5 percent of all cork-bottled French wine develops a corky
taste and needs to be dumped.

Scientists disagree over how much oxygen exchange takes place to speed
the aging of wine, so that issue is still being debated in the industry.
What is clear from scientific studies is that the screwtop ensures that
all bottles of a given vintage will be identical, and it solves the
problem of corky taste.

Only the low-end wine drinkers seem totally indifferent. A wine shop
manager in Boston told me the screwtop is already established on cheap
varieties. I asked him if he hears any grumbling from those drinkers.
"Not here," he said. "A, they don't know the difference, and B they
don't care."

Despite the pro-screwtop arguments, many wine purists just don't want to
let go of the cork. Said one wine writer: "This is simply the beginning
of the end of Western civilization."

Michael Johnson is a journalist based in Bordeaux.