When we were recently in Australia, we saw a ton of wines produced with screwcaps. Hence, I was very interested by Mike's post on a talk given by Randall Graham of Bonny Doon:
Bonny Doon has switched almost entirely to screw caps. Randall Graham said that he tried plastic corks, but found that they seal more poorly than real corks and that wine ages faster with plastic corks. Randall also said that there are two different kinds of screw caps. One kind seals very tightly, which slows down wine aging. The other lets a little air in, similar to a real cork. Bonny Doon apparently uses both kinds of screw caps, depending on the type of wine.
I must admit to being very skeptical about plastic corks, as I noted in raising concerns about whether Behrens & Hitchcock wines - one of my favorites - will age all well. Personally, except for the rare wine I plan to cellar for decades, I would prefer screwcaps to both real and plastic corks. Unfortunately, since I've been back in LA, pretty much the only wines I've seen with screwcaps have been a few Aussie and NZ wines and, of course, Bonny Doon. When will California get with the program?
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