Thanks for posting this so I didnt have to... ^

I know of various high-end labels that have shed cork... but not at the price point you mention. Is this a current vintage release or is this an at auction purchase of a back vintage...?

I dont mean to put you on the spot, but would you mind sharing the details of your purchase...? If PM is better for you and you dont mind sharing the info, I would appreciate hearing the details.

Muchas gracias,
Gaucho100K

Why not both? Remove the screwtop, uncork, and if unfinished, replace with the screwtop?

PP

US is very snobbish about wine, making marketing of screwcaps difficult; there are several Cabs > USD 100 bottled in California with screwcaps, however. The expensive wines with screwcaps are all from Australia and NZ from what I've seen, in fact everything except Grange is available in screwcap. My expensive bottle was Penfolds Bin 707 1990 (the first year that screwcap was done). Current release cost is about USD 150 and worth it. For current release wines the most expensive screwcap that I've seen is USD 200 and that is in the US (also sold out at the winery, there is no retail distribution). You guys in the wine business should be well versed about this, maybe I should be charging for consultation? In any case I have yet to encounter a screwcap wine that has suffered for it (and that includes no TCA, though of course it can happen).

It annoys me when math terms (vector is from math, if I'm correct?) are used to describe wine contamination. What do you mean by that?

vector is not only a math term. There are several definitions within biology and epidemiology, but simply put it's a method/source of passing a contaminant/pathogen from one body to another.

So cork is a vector, meaning it's some kind of bug? (keeping it on topic here, right? :))

Not true as I noted above in post #13. Mesach goes for around $500 depending on the year.

No... A vector, in that sense is a mode of pathogen transfer. FWIW, humans and other animals can all act as vectors :)

As I mentioned earlier, I carry a portable corkscrew in my carry on bag, the kind where the corkscrew is in a tube and the tube removes and then goes through a hole in the top of the corkscrew to become the handle. The one downside is the occasional hard to remove cork, one of which rests in my hotel room right now. Couldn't get it out last night, no matter how hard I pulled. Tonight I'll take it downstairs to the hotel bar and see if they will open it for me...probably charge me a corkage fee... :o

Apart from one mishap, the screwtop thing has worked well for me. Have just returned from France, where increasingly French wines that previously wouldn't have been seen dead under a screwtop now have one instead of cork. I predict that within five years cork will have disappeared from Europe, as it has in Australia, New Zealand, and now increasingly in South America. And screwtop is so much more convenient, as others have stated.

The mishap was one where the screwtop machine had obviously malfunctioned. The shank that clamps to the neck of the bottle had not clamped, and the entire assembly was thereby able to spin on the top of the bottle, resulting in leakage and a wine that had maderised. That's the secret, it seems to me: ensuring that the shank is securely clamped to the bottle neck as well as that the top of the cap is properly pressed against the top of the neck.

Cork hasn't disappeared from those places, nor will it disappear from France in our lifetimes. I can guarantee that. It's not about snobbery. It's about tradition. And tradition dies very hard here. There are plenty of winemakers here who will never switch. And it will take a good bit longer than 5 years for them to die out.

will the cost of a screwcap machine play any part in who does and who does not procure them?

i sort of think screaming eagle is screw cap. the 2001-2002 hill of grace were bottled with both. now, here is a chance to compare cork to aluminem on a better bottle of wine. i'll volunteer, if no one else will.

Almost all of the high-end Aussie wines in the "hill of grace" class were bottled in both screwcap and cork in some years, so there are literally dozens of different bottlings that can be sampled and are now aged enough to matter (though 2001 hill of grace shouldn't be touched before 2015!). I've done the tasting and prefer the screwcap when there is a difference, which is what led me to be curious about how/what makes wine age and the varous closure alternatives. Cork is pretty good, and as mentioned traditional, but the worst of the mordern alternatives. However other factors in storage such as vibration, temperature, stability are as important and often more important in the taste of wine than the closure. Not to mention factors in fabrication, such as the fining used and even the eggs :) Even barometric pressure at the time of bottling will have an affect!

Totally agree.