A cork gives a bottle of wine character and prestige; a screw cap is much easier to open. We all have our preferences, but which is better? Discover the pros and cons of corks and caps and decide for yourself how to solve this wine dilemma.
Cork vs. Cap
The majority of New Zealand and Australian wines today come with a screw cap, and many European wine producers have changed from cork to cap or use both. Even iconic Bordeaux producer Chateau Margaux started an experiment by bottling some of their second wine, Pavillon Rouge, with screw caps. Does this mean the screw cap is better than the cork for closing a wine bottle? Well, it turns out both have pros and cons – it boils down to preference and which features matter most to you.
Aging
Probably the most important matter for wine enthusiasts is under which circumstances your wine is best preserved. In general you could say cork as well as screw cap or most other alternatives are fine if you intend to drink the wine within two years after bottling. But red wines that need ageing and complex white wines such as Le Montrachet Grand Cru are, as most specialists say, better off with cork. The slow ingress of oxygen through the cork is important in the process of ageing a wine, since just a milligram of oxygen a year is sufficient to break down the sulphites added by the winemaker to protect it from oxidation. More research is needed to determine whether or not screw caps are suitable for ageing wine, but as technology and quality of screw caps is improving quickly, we may see an increase in screw-cap bottled premium wines soon.
Storage
A wine bottle closed with cork needs to be stored on its side, so the cork can stay moist; if it dries out it will shrink, affecting the oxygen intake because the cork no longer closes off the bottle sufficiently. A wine bottle closed with a cap however, can be stored either on its side or standing up.
Opening
Some prefer the ease with which a screw cap can be opened; you can do it anywhere, without the need of tools. Others prefer the traditional method of opening a bottle of wine closed with cork, because it takes more effort; it’s part of the ceremony.
Sustainability
Since the production of wines is larger than ever, sustainability is an important matter. But which is better? Natural cork is 100% recyclable, since it is made from the bark of a cork tree: a naturally renewable source, although it takes about 7-10 years before a tree can be stripped again. If winemakers continue to choose alternatives, many cork oak forests will be lost – threatening ecosystems and jobs. However, cork is not easily recyclable and often ends up at the wrong garbage pile making recycling even harder. Metal screw-caps are recyclable too and can be made into new caps quite easily.
Cork tree
The truth?
Experiments show that most people choose a corked bottle over a screw cap bottle, assuming the corked wine will be of better quality. They are willing to pay more for it and choose the corked version to give as a present because the other version might seem cheap. Screw caps have quite a bad reputation since they were used to close cheaper wines by bulk companies – even though some of the best wines are now closed with a screw cap. But as you know now Grand Cru chateaux are experimenting with screws as well.
So what would you choose, for your future wines? Take a look at our weekly Wine auctions for an exquisite collection of both corked and screw-top wines. And don't forget, anybody can sell special wines here at Catawiki. So if you have an exciting collection, why not offer it up for auction? Become a seller - it's free and easy!
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