Cork and alternative closures for Port

[Roy Hersh]

I have a bottle of Madeira on my desk that I have been sipping while preparing the next newsletter (at night) and was staring at the closure.

It is a simple "T closure" the same type that is in ruby/tawny Port, many LBVs and even Tawny Port with an indication of age. So, what if these simple to remove corks were used for Vintage Port? Could they work? Would they fail because they wouldn't allow the wines to age by permitting minute passage of oxygen into the bottle?

What do you think?

[Frederick Blais]

For madeira it's a bit different. The wine need to stay up on its bottom for its storage, while VP need to be stored on its side. We don't know yet the effect of long contact with plastic top and Port. What about after 30 years of contact with the liquid and the plastic, its flavor was spoiling the wines.

As with any new closure, test need to be conduct, it is not an easy decision to take.

Also something to consider is the lobyist of cork in Portugal. If all Port were using T-Cork as a closure, can you image how much less corks in volume would be produce. This would have a huge impact in sales and then jobs... Even if it was benefical, it is not something that could happen very soon, lobyist is too powerful!

[Al B.]

I would be very sad to see anything replace cork for the vintage wines or for wines intended to mature in the bottle.

There's something fun about pulling a cork - or at least trying to get all the bits out of the bottle after the cork has fragmented on you. :)

I'm all in favour of something replacing the cork (even if its a T-cork) in LBV's. In fact, I was really surprised the other day when I opened a Ferreira 1996 LBV and had to pull a cork with a corkscrew instead of just popping out a T stopper.

So count this a vote for long corks to remain for fine VP's.

Alex

[Mike Kerr]

Alex, I believe that unfiltered LBV's use a full cork. Filtered LBV's use the T-cork.

I have several of both on-hand and this seems to be the trend.

Mike.