Rumours are making the round that the 2009 production of a white wine from a very well known Greek producer has fallen victim to bad corks. I first heard about this on Sunday morning, when I was having coffee with the winemaker himself. He was clearly worried, as he had over the last view days encountered multiple bottles of his wine that were all ruined by cork taint. These wines were just bottled a few weeks ago, and the cork used was not inexpensive! I have now heard from other sources that this seems indeed to be the case.

My thoughts are with the winemaker, if confirmed, this would be an enormous financial setback, especially in the current economic environment. I hope he will receive all possible support – I know that Greeks can be enormously gracious to those in need, and the wine community is tightly knit together! The consumer should not worry, I have no doubt that the effected bottles will not make it into the open market, or will be immediately withdrawn.

I posted on the issue of closures 3 weeks ago; this unfortunate event shows just how important the issue is. I encourage growers to support screwcaps as a viable alternative to cork. Cork taint on such a large scale is rare, however, it is a risk not to be underestimated.

On another note, I will be abroad on business over the next two weeks, and most likely not find the time to blog.

Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon fame tested synthetic closures for a couple of years in the late nineties and ended up “greatly comprising the quality and longevity of a few wines that were quite important to us – a real pity”. He has since moved to bottle his entire production with screwcaps and is delighted with the results.

Another strong supporter of Stelvin screwcaps is my good friend Dirk Wuertz, a winemaker from Rheinhessen in Germany, who has little doubt that this closure will be the future choice for winemakers to use.

Greek Master of Wine Konstantinos Lazarakis also stated recently that screwcaps “rule” as they keep freshness up and direct development down. One of the few Greek winemakers that do use Stelvin screwcaps is Georgos Skouras. His Viognier and Chardonnay wines age exceptionally well.

However, the vast majority of Greek wines use either natural cork or synthetic closures. I called Petros Markantonatas from the Gentilini winery, as his estate was one of the first ones in Greece to opt for synthetic closures 10 years back. The main reason that synthetic closures are being used is the perceived customer acceptance in Greece. It was relatively easy to move from natural cork to synthetic closure, but the Greek consumer still likes to open a bottle of wine “the traditional way”. Another factor is that the existing bottling lines cater easily for both natural cork and synthetic closures, whereas new equipment needs to be employed for screwcaps. At the same time, the Gentilini winery is actually planning to move towards screwcaps for the export markets. Personally I also observe that nearly all wines are drunk young in Greece, the concept of storing and ageing wines is a relative new one for the Greek consumer.

I would love to hear the opinions of winemakers and consumers alike on the issue of closures via the comment section as I feel that the topic is a very important one that deserves more attention.

Note: Randall Grahm’s observations are loosely quoted from his book “Been Doon So Long“, in addition he has voiced his opinions several times via twitter. When he speaks, I listen!

Update: Please also check out this article by @enobytes