Tim's Ravings

The greatest revolution I have seen as a winemaker is the dramatic switch from cork to screwcaps. For me, it was akin to the discovery of the theory of evolution or that the earth revolved around the sun.

My vinous eye-opener happened around 10 years ago. The Clare Valley in South Australia will be recorded as this revolution’s epicentre - winemakers there were sick of having their marvellous Rieslings ruined by off-flavour linked to cork, and they made an en-masse switch to screwcaps.

Other domestic producers had made similar declarations but the fact that a premium and world-recognised wine style had made a joint and forceful decision made the market sit up and take notice.

In Australia cork sales dropped by almost two-thirds over the next few years as consumers voted with their palates and joined the winemakers in protest against cork.

The reaction from the cork industry was like the backlash against Darwin or Copernicus. If the earth really did revolve around the sun, why didn’t people spin-off the earth, and there was no way man could be related to apes; screwcaps similarly went againt the orthdoxy and made no sense. A decade ago websites were abuzz that wine would not age under a screwcap, that ecosystems would be destroyed if cork plantations were shut down and even, most hysterically and shamefully, that screwcaps caused cancer.

The last remaining excuse is the nostalgia of the pop of a cork. If this is the main reason for drinking wine, you should be legally restrained from corkscrews and other sharp objects.

The facts are that screwcaps are a better seal than the vast majority of corks can ever be; they provide a perfect seal as the best corks do (and therefore there is no random oxidation), while also never contaminating wine with the dreaded TCA off-flavour. Plus the seal does not appear to rupture as cork frequently does when subjected to constant heating-cooling cycles; the bottle doesn’t need to be stored in a special wine cellar.

And winemakers everywhere are reporting their red wines are ageing under screwcap as well, and mostly better, than they do under cork.

For customers of Huntington Estate - which prides itself on ageworthy, classical reds – this is only good news.Ten