shygye Posted October 25, 2005 Report Share Posted October 25, 2005 Buy wine with a screwcap or plastic "cork". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rchapstick Posted October 25, 2005 Report Share Posted October 25, 2005 shygye said: Buy wine with a screwcap or plastic "cork". Only available for <5% of the wines available (though growing), and even a lower % of wines you'd want to cellar for any appreciable amount of time. I've read that screwcaps will ultimately be the best option for storing high-end wines, but it will be hard to get past the "snob-factor". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.. Posted October 25, 2005 Report Share Posted October 25, 2005 As witnessed by those leading winemakers Boone's Farm and Mogen-David. They have been using screw tops for years Cheers, SD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidflux Posted October 25, 2005 Report Share Posted October 25, 2005 Strawberry Hill Man, that shit brings back some memories Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.. Posted October 25, 2005 Report Share Posted October 25, 2005 Didya know that MD now comes in orange? LOL! I actually had a swig from a bottle of Mad Dog that someone brought to a party the last time I was in the States. Boy, now that is vile shit! How did we ever drink that as kids??? And do not forget the late 70's girls fav drink: Peach Riunite! 55555555555555555555555 Cheers, SD PS -- I suppose a box-o-wine would last a long time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidflux Posted October 25, 2005 Report Share Posted October 25, 2005 I was just a wee lad in the late 70's. Strawberry hill and mickeys big mouth was all the rage in my high school days. Mix in a few bartles n james wine coolers, and you've got an 80's drunkfest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.. Posted October 25, 2005 Report Share Posted October 25, 2005 "Thank you for your support." B-n-J, great ads. Yup, Mickey's, Colt 45, Olde English 800, Molson Brador or Labatt's Extra Stock (if someone had made a Canada run recently -- not available in US then)...all those high alcohol beers were popular at my high school too. And of course, 'shrooms, mesc, weed, speeders, etc. too. Not much into wine except for the gals and their aforementioned Reach Piunite. Cheers, SD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rchapstick Posted October 27, 2005 Report Share Posted October 27, 2005 Apparently, the Boons Farms/Mogan David crowd was WAY ahead of their time! Message to wine producers: Put a cork in it (not!) Michael Dresser The Baltimore Sun Aug. 13, 2004 12:00 AM Among wine writers, it's widely understood that you don't bash a producer because one of his wines is "corked." The attitude is: TCA (a nasty cork-contaminating substance) happens. If that gets into the product, it's not the winery's fault. Foul luck, old chap. Bad bottle. Take a mulligan. That's starting to change. advertisement After conducting a four-year study of various bottle-closing devices, Hogue Cellars of Washington state announced this summer that it will convert 70 percent of its wine production this year to Stelvin screw caps. Eventually, it hopes to jettison corks for all its wines, said chief winemaker David Forsyth. Hogue apparently will become the largest U.S. producer of premium wines under screw caps -- more than 300,000 cases out of a production of 500,000 cases. The Washington winery follows a handful of smaller American pioneers in adopting screw caps -- notably California's Bonny Doon and its Ca' del Solo affiliate; Oregon's Argyle; California's Kendall-Jackson's Robert Pepi winery and the Napa Valley, Calif.'s PlumpJack, which sells $150 cabernet sauvignons with twist-off tops. In Australia and New Zealand, screw caps have become commonplace for bottling fruity whites such as riesling and sauvignon blanc. The results are excellent. The giant Penfolds winery recently announced it will convert its Koonunga Hill wines -- red and white -- to screw caps for the Australian market. (Not the U.S. market. The folks at Penfolds apparently think Americans are a bit slow.) Even in tradition-encrusted Bordeaux, corks are crumbling. Last month, winery owner Andre Lurton announced he would release 2003 wines from three prestigious chateaux -- Couhins-Lurton, Bonnet and La Louviere -- with screw caps. It's time for the rest of the world to follow. Every winery from Gallo to Chateau Petrus should have a no-TCA strategy in the works. The problem of contaminated corks is bad, getting worse and not going away. On my kitchen counter sit two bottles of wine opened in the past two weeks -- both full except for the one glass that was quickly dumped down the sink. One was a pinot grigio from an excellent high-end California producer; the other was a chardonnay from a leading Washington state winery (not Hogue). Both were undrinkable because of bad corks. The screw cap has proved to be a superior closure in extensive tests in Australia and New Zealand. Hogue's testing merely confirms those results but is valuable nevertheless. Americans tend to distrust research conducted on foreign soil. Hogue bottled a 1999 merlot and a 2000 chardonnay under natural corks, two types of synthetic cork and Stelvin screw caps. In December, Hogue assembled a panel of wine professionals and tasted the wines side by side. The screw-cap wines consistently outperformed those with natural and artificial corks for both reds and whites. Forsyth said Hogue's tasting found contamination running about 18 percent with the natural corks. It found no contamination in the synthetic corks but found the wines bottled that way oxidized quicker than others -- losing fruit and aromas. Hogue is moving forward this year to bottle what it calls its Fruit Forward wines -- red and white varietals costing about $10 -- under screw caps. In what Forsyth realizes is an anomaly, Hogue will continue for now to bottle its more expensive Genesis and Reserve wines under the traditional but inferior closure. "We've got our eyes on them too," he said. The challenge facing Hogue and other producers is a public perception that corks are a sign of sophistication, quality and romance. Screw caps carry a stigma from decades past. Forsyth said consumers see them as a cost-saving effort by the winery rather than a step forward. Forsyth said the burden will be on wineries to persuade a skeptical public. That's fair enough, but critics can do their part in changing the paradigm. If I'm still in this line of work with the 2006 vintage, no breaks will be given to winemakers who produce tainted wines. Readers will get a description of the sweaty-socks aromas and the moldy flavors, but no excuses about bad corks. I'll name names. This isn't about cork. It's about bad wine. If the cork industry can come up with a reliable technology for avoiding contamination, more power to them. Otherwise, it's time to put the screws to the wine industry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous_Dog Posted October 27, 2005 Report Share Posted October 27, 2005 Penfolds in Australia now use plastic corks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gummigut Posted November 6, 2005 Report Share Posted November 6, 2005 Wine cooling units are all over the freak'n place. The hypermarkets even got them. Go to the local Big C or Tesco. Freaked me out, because, who's like buying them? Though they do not have humidity control like you can get if you order from the Wine Enthusiast. Then again, neither did the ones I saw at the Emporium. Wine Units are an awesome investment if you drink wine, and will return it's value many times over the life of the wine unit. Having said that, what you want is something that will keep your reds from 4 to 9 years. Ideally, when the wine unit is full, every mature bottle you drink, you buy a 3-year old to store. The rate that you drink wine (and the ratio of red to white) will determine the wine unit size you should buy. IF you don't drink wine that regularly, then you shouldn't invest in a wine unit and just pay premium prices or be satisfied with young vintages. As stated previously, the temperature fluctuations is what will kill the wine. Storing a bottle at constant 72 degrees farenheit isn't ideal, but it will be MUCH better off than a bottle that fluctuates 10 degrees either way and averages at 72, which will definitely die. Though I wouldn't worry about a few months storage on the kitchen shelf. As for Thailand having no humidity controlled wine units.... Just keep some standing water in the wine unit. Just don't forget to check every couple of weeks. Not a huge deal. If you are going to buy a wine unit, you should read up about choosing a wine bottle, what to look for in the corkage regarding leakage, seal, depth of cork, and hardness. Especially if you buy half a case. Half the fun of doing that is comparing how the wine tastes as it ages and you don't want some crappy corkage to skew that. <<burp>> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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