To Cork Or Not To Cork
As Taber points out there is reason to believe that “the perfect seal” may not be perfect. There is reason to believe that some air in the bottle provides for a better product over time, especially among the red wines. The cork’s seal was sufficiently imperfect that small quantities of air do get introduced to the bottle over time. The replacement technologies–plastic “corks” and metal screw-off caps–do provide an essentially “perfect” seal. The result? What’s know as “reduction’, a process that yields a wine that tastes, as the author phrases it, “like sulfur infused rotten eggs”.
Vast portions of the wine industry have rushed to the corner of one or the other technology. Australia has all but converted to the newer technologies. So have some of the highest end wineries in the US and (gulp) France. This has the natives in an uproar, mainly because the traditionalists–and the sommeliers of the world–view the destruction of the tableside wine presentation vignette as the surest sign that the apocalypse is indeed upon us. Tradition and snobbery, meet commerce and technology. The casual bystander should turn his eye from this grisly scene.
Where are things headed? It’s possible cork may make a comeback. The cork world has finally removed it’s blinders, trashed the arrogance and started to effect some much needed quality control processes that should improve the product.
Cheers always to the grape and to cork too.
