Natural Cork vs. Screw Caps
You'll find many different arguments among wine lovers... Red vs. White, or French wine vs. California wine. But one of the biggest arguments that you'll hear is natural cork vs. screw caps. That's right... whether or not wine bottles should be sealed with a traditional, natural cork, or with screw caps. Each of these methods has it's good points and it's bad points. And of course each method has it's proponents
The primary reason that natural cork is under attack, is that a natural cork may allow the wine to become "corked". this occurs when the wine is tainted with a substance called trichloroanisole. This substance is formed when the chlorine, which is used to sanitize the cork, reacts with a mold that sometimes grows in cork. TCA causes a musty odor, and a flat, moldy flavor. An estimated 5-10% of wines on merchant shelves are "corked".
Natural corks are also not always so easy to remove from the bottle. Some of them crumble too easily, especially when you insert the corkscrew too far or off center.
That having been said, cork stoppers are not all bad. Experts say that natural corks do allow the wine to breathe a bit. Their porous nature allows oxygen into the bottle, and other gases out. Some say that this is what allows wine to age, while others claim that it is the compounds in the wine that allow aging, and corks don't make a difference over screw caps. Another advantage of natural cork, is the satisfying "pop" as it comes out of the bottle. A screw cap can't compare with the drama and romance of popping a cork out of the neck of the bottle.
You may have also seen synthetic corks recently. These stoppers, instead of being made from natural cork bark, are made from plastic. Synthetic corks are even harder to get out of the bottle than natural corks, and near impossible to put back in, if you need to put the bottle away after opening. Synthetic corks have also been known to allow the wine to oxidize, which causes flatness in the wine. It takes away some of the chemicals that form an important part of the wine aroma.
Screw caps seem to be the perfect solution for sealing a bottle of wine. They don't allow the wine to become "corked", like natural corks. They're much easier to remove than both natural and synthetic corks. And screw caps don't allow the wine to oxidize like synthetic corks. There is some argument about whether screw caps allow the wine to age, like a natural cork does. Since aging a bottle of wine may take 5-50 years, and the screw cap is a relatively recent development, it will take some time to determine whether or not the wine will age as well.
In the future it's likely that you'll see more and more wine being sealed with a screw cap than with a cork. Personally, the advantages seem to be in favor of the screw cap. But with proper storage, a good bottle of wine can liven up a party or meal, no matter whether it's sealed with a cap or a cork.
