Cork allows some contact of the wine with oxygen, allowing it to evolve over the years.

For wines that lose their primary characteristic when aged (think fruity, fresh wines, normally whites) a screw top is the way to go, for something you want to keep in your cellar and let it evolve a bit till is just right, I'll take cork every day.

As a sidenote, cork was one of the main components of the Space Shuttle's insulation (http://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/03/science/shuttle-s-cork-fro...) [and yes, I'm from Portugal, you can all blame us for the Columbia...]

Screw tops also allow oxygen to flow through, in fact, it can even be 'controlled'[1]. This way the caps on some younger wines allow more oxygen to flow through than the older 'lay-down' ones etc.

Overall, a screw-cap is a way better option, one of the biggest wine vendors in France (Chateau Bonnet from the famous André Lurton) switched to caps some years ago after extensive research and also prefers them above traditional cork for all wines. Furthermore see [2], they list the following advantages:

- No cork taint

- No more sporadic oxidation

- Screwcaps avoid flavour modification, including scalping

- Both red and white wines can age under screwcap

- A reliable long-term seal

- Cellaring

- Recycling

[1] http://www.mutineermagazine.com/blog/2008/05/screw-this-cap-...

[2] http://www.screwcapinitiative.com/normal.asp?navID=24&pa...

"No cork taint"

Theoretically cork taint is mostly avoidable as long as the wines aren't stored in buildings made from wood or that have wood floors, and as long as there isn't air conditioning. The reason for cork taint is that the chlorine that's used in cleaning products and that comes out of air conditioners (running on chlorinated city water) builds up in wood over time, and then reacts with the mold in cork to form TCA. The other problem is that the vast majority of cork is stored on the ground and is just left to get moldy with zero quality standards, despite what this article would have you believe. Cork taint should be essentially non-existant up until the time of purchase, it's just that the industry has been completely unable to get its act together.

I'm confused by your comment about chlorine from ACs. What sort of AC system uses tap water? Obviously not forced air, but I've only been in water cooled buildings that use nearby lake or river water, presumably because using treated water would be wasteful. Is this common somewhere?

Very curious - thanks for the insight, esp on the cleaning products!

Hmm I'm not sure about the air conditioning off the top of my head. George Taber has a book called To Cork or Not To Cork, and I know he discusses the different sources of chlorine in there. It's possible that some commercial air conditioning systems have built in humidifiers, but I'm not positive.

Swamp/Evaporative coolers are popular in western US. We had one in Colorado and worked extremely well and was cheap to operate. Not very good wine country though.

Everything that you say is true. But I really like the ceremony of using a corkscrew to open a bottle of wine; it is a lot more tactile than opening a screw cap.

That is why http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_wine_closure was invented. Apparently, this isn't common in the US, but it is in Western Europe.

It's fairly common. You see it with some of the table wines and it's something the California wineries would love to bring to the higher-end stuff, but they're still in the process of "educating" the public as to its advantages. Waiting for it to become acceptable, basically.

And lots of wine is table wine which will not stored to evolve through the years, but drunken fairly quickly. I don't see why you wouldn't use screwtops for these wines.

It wasn't your fault -- it was rapid expansion/contraction of the external fuel tank during the filling process that caused the insulation to crack.

Is there any reason the wine industry seems to stick to cork then, other than just being an old fashioned industry?

Sometimes you want the wine to be exposed to oxygen as it does; it changes the flavor of the wine, sometimes for the better. This is similar to decanting a wine; exposure to air changes it chemically.

Wine is often a social experience - so there is something too be said for the "fun" and flash of popping open a cork.

There's also significant market momentum to overcome as screw tops are often associated with cheap wine at the (typical) consumer level.

Yes, but this perception is rapidly changing, especially since there are plastic corks available (not screw tops). In Europe quality wines now often come with plastic corks.

The wine industry would be very, very happy to switch over to polymer corks or caps. They stick with cork because it's what the majority of buyers wants.

I find there is a ritual in bringing out the cork screw and opening the bottle. Think about how a waiter presents it in a restaurant. There's no anticipation or show in having them come out, showing you the bottle, then twisting the cap off.

In a similar note, we have a "rabbit" corkscrew. It's super efficient at opening a bottle, but is not particularly satisfying. Have you ever asked yourself, If only I could open this bottle faster? (Although it can be convenient if you're cooking with wine.)

There is a kind without the... screw, the spiral thing I mean. It's pointy and just slightly curved in S. I've been unable to find an image for it in five minutes.

I bet that, once you get used to it (after spoling a few hundreds of corks, that's it) it's faster than the "rabbit" model.

I say that because I used to be faster with the simple, T-shaped screw, and I've seen it used in restaurants by experienced waiters.

You forgot the part about the cork, which is presented to the purchaser for inspection (a quick sniff) to make sure the wine hasn't gone bad.

Yes, better wine preservation.

Australia and NZ wineries use screw tops almost exclusively even for high-end wines. In the US market buyers still believe that cork is better though so the wineries must accommodate that.

I don't know what your definition of high-end wine is, but I've never seen a screw top on anything I've drunk over $50.

I've seen it on several wines over $50 from New Zeeland and I've heard that most Australian wines in Australia now come with screw corks even at the higher end (natural cork is only used for exported wines). They seem to be leading the charge on that front. I've also seen it on a couple of French whites. But as others have mentioned, most vineyards are reluctant to do so (especially on wine for export), not because of any quality concerns, but because many people think screw caps make wines look cheap.

This is correct - it's very rare to find a corked bottle in Australia, even over the $50 price point

It's not rot or breakdown of the cork that causes that odor and flavor. It's a result of the metabolic processes of a fungus. I've always wondered if they could fix that by irradiating the things...

Bonny Doon Vineyard makes a good case for screwcaps.

https://www.bonnydoonvineyard.com/screwcaps/

Easier to open too!