Closure

No, this post is not about some airy-fairy "You'll feel better after moving on" idea; it's about the thingy at the open end of your wine bottle that keeps the wine in and the air out.

According to Beekman, the Romans used to seal their amphora with "a coating of pitch or gypsum over the opening of a vessel or a film of olive oil floating on the surface of the wine. I for one am glad that this is no longer common practice. Think of the drawbacks of these 3 methods;

• Pitch - this involves un-processed mineral oil in contact with my beverage??? cannot be good for you, and think what it would do to the nose!
• Gypsum - better than pitch, but marginally so. Gypsum is porous, flaky, and delicate. I would imagine that if you did not accidentally break it, that you would still be picking pieces of chalk out of your glass.
• Olive oil - well, at least this is edible. Not the most transport worthy stopper, and an oily film on my wine?? I think not.

Then there's the medieval method of stuffing wax coated cloth into the neck of the bottle. Ingenious, but not exactly up to aging in a damp cellar for 10-20 years.

Thanks to some unnamed Portuguese, and fortunately for us, stopper technology has improved over the years. Enter the Cork.

Corks are great. It's a natural substance that is non-toxic, and grows on trees. It provides a safe and secure seal to your bottle, and a self satisfying pop when properly vacated from the bottle.

Corks come in many styles. If you're interested check out Real Cork for a dissertation. In my reviews, I simplify this to two basic styles; real cork ("Natural Cork Closure" by real cork's definition) and agglomerated (any other cork closure). I differentiate because what I call agglomerated corks contain glue, and according to their own manufactures websites, they are not intended for cellaring (so drink them quick!)

Enter the Synthetic Cork.
Synthetic corks are a relatively recent innovation, and are becoming less rare. They were originally introduced for 2 main reasons:

• Cost - since you don't have to wait 52 years to grow an oak tree, these closures are cheaper.
• Corkiness - Corked wine is an expensive problem, and synthetic corks don't cork.

Synthetic corks also come in many styles; and again I have simplified my reviews to mentioning 2 types. Whole stoppers like the ones produced by SupremeCorq; and "agglomerated" which are made of small bits of rubber bound together.

While IMHO there is nothing technically wrong with a synthetic cork, they are (with many an exception) more often found on lower quality wines than high quality ones. This may be due to the cost.

Enter the Screw Cap.
Both natural and synthetic corks have the disadvantage of requiring a tool to open the bottle. Screw caps do not. They are also extremely cheap. They also crush easily, so if you open a bottle on the beach and want to bring the remainder home you need to be careful that it does not leak in your picnic basket.
IMHO there are 3 things wrong with screw caps and one of those is purely perception.

• Ritual - Wine is a luxury item surrounded by rituals, and I would argue that part of our enjoyment of wine comes from these rituals. Without a cork, you loose the bottle opening ritual
• Evaluation - Without a cork, you lose some of the techniques to judge the quality of the environment that the wine was stored in. A screw cap gathers no sediment, and likewise will not tell you if the wine was stored too hot or too cold for too long.
• Perception - There is only one serious wine maker that I know of (Bonny Doon) that is using screw cap closures. The vast majority of screw capped wine is rot gut plonk.

The verdict

While you cannot tell for sure the quality of of a wine by it's closure; wines with real corks are more likely to come from good vintners than ones with agglomerated, synthetic or screw cap closures. Agglomerated corks are worse than any kind of synthetic as a few months in your cellar will ruin the wine. Screw caps are no fun, and hardly anybody of note uses them (unless you like Night Train?)