Originally Posted by
number_6
In NZ I came across a screw-top wine selling for USD 40 per bottle (putting it into the top 0.0001% price range for NZ wines, which are excellent but cheap). In the US it is hard to find any screw-top wines (in bottles, just no cork), and the few that exist are punished in the marketplace.
Didn't some segment of the NZ wine industry mandate a move to screwtop/Stelvin tops (a la Clare Valley/South Australia rieslings)? I bought a couple of Stelvin bottles of Frankland (Western Australia riesling) a few years back and it was the top-rated (by James Halliday) Aussie riesling that year. Maybe not too difficult as riesling is not widely grown in Australia.
I guess the U.S. consumers are too new to wine and not sensitive to cork taint or other cork-related spoilage. It does seem a good many consumers like the ritual of the wine being uncorked.
Screwtops are fortunately becoming quite common with B.C. wines.