After he had poured all the wines, winemaker Matt Koch lined up six bottles of Rosemount, ranging from $10 to $45, on a shelf at Crave restaurant in Edina. Something was amiss, I thought, before tumbling to what it was: The only bottle with a cork was the cheapest of the bunch, the wildly popular Rosemount Shiraz. What's up with that? I asked Koch.
"It's only in America that we use cork, and it's only on our inexpensive reds," he replied. "We've found that when Americans see an $8 or $10 red with a screw cap, they think it's not a good wine. If it's a more expensive red, they figure it's fine."
Weird? Not really.
First off, the people who tend to buy $25-and-up wines are more likely to have experienced "cork taint," and thus be more receptive to alternative bottle closures. Seasoned tasters also are more adept at recognizing the musty, moldy characteristics of a "corked" wine. They also tend to cellar wine more often, and older bottles are more susceptible to problems because the wine has been in contact with the cork for longer periods. I was at a party last summer where four of the first seven bottles opened were corked; they ranged from seven to 13 years old.
Meanwhile, wine drinkers who stay in the under-$15 range are more likely, when encountering a corked bottle, to figure they're simply drinking a wine they don't like. None of us knew what the problem was with the first corked bottle we encountered, and even experts sometimes have trouble telling whether the problem with an "off" wine is the cork (either via taint or oxidation from air leaking in) or poor storage conditions (which can ruin a wine just as readily).
Also, some bottles have only small amounts of cork taint and haven't developed the telltale moldy-basement, wet-dog aromas of a wine that should be poured down the drain. (There's no cure.)
Cork taint has been around since a monk named Dom Perignon came up with the idea of using it as a closure. But the recent problems have brought about a raft of changes for the better:
• Screw caps have become acceptable. Since the marvelously monikered New Zealand Screwcap Initiative emerged a decade ago, not only have the vast majority of wines from Down Under switched to screwtops, but so have 16 percent of wines worldwide, including Jean-Claude Boisset Chambertin Grand Cru ($200) and PlumpJack cabernets (up to $160).
• Plastic corks have risen to about 18 percent of the world's bottles, although that's a mixed bag for those of us who find extracting and re-inserting these infernal toppers about as much fun as weed-eating.
• Cork manufacturers and wineries where taint has spread have taken measures to reduce its occurrence, and there's evidence that taint is on the wane.
The best news: We've reached a stage where no one should be snobby about screw caps or corks, any more than they should be prejudiced against certain varietals, or boxed wines, or folks who sip wine with their pinky finger extended.
It's a big ol' wine world, and there's room enough for all closures.
Bill Ward • bill.ward@startribune. com. Read Ward on Wine at www.startribune.com/blogs/wine.
