Not Screwed At All

What all serious wine drinkers fear from the substitution of corks with screwtops is that aged wine won't taste the same. After all, years in contact with an organic material such as cork is likely to alter flavors. I sure don't care about the other major concern—that corks look expensive and screwcaps look like they belong on a $5.99 bottle. I don't think you should care, either. Screwtops do a great job if you're drinking the wine when it's young. No question about that.

But what about a wine with a few years in a bottle? I recently tried a 1999 PlumpJack Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon with a screwcap—I consider seven years to be medium aging for a California Cabernet. I wondered what the effects would be.

The wine was brick-red rather than vivid purple, a sign that the aging process was nicely underway. I detected two of the classic signs of a nicely developing Cabernet, spice and black currants, scents I'm reasonably certain wouldn't have been there at the time of bottling. Another plus: It was a lovely drink.

PlumpJack has been bottling its Reserve Cabernet with both corks and with screwcaps since 1997, as a test of divergence, and the winery claims that no noticeable differences have been detected. (The 2003 reserve is about to be released, if you want to conduct your own experiment.) It's too soon to tell for sure, but if screwtops continue to be successful, corks are doomed. And a lot of trees are saved.