Brave New Cork
Half a dozen West Coast wineries are taking dead aim at the most venerated--and most dubious--tradition in the wine business: the cork.
St. Francis Winery and Barefoot Cellars in Sonoma County, Yamhill Valley Vineyards in Oregon and Washington Winery, near Spokane, have bottled some of this year’s wines with synthetic corks. And there’s more to come, including Napa Valley’s well-known Stags’ Leap Vintners, which says it will do away with cork in favor of an as-yet-unchosen closure system within the next few months. At least four other Washington wineries--Facelli Winery, Portteus Vineyards, Preston Wine Cellars and Hogue Cellars--are considering tests of synthetic corks.
Most of the wineries making the change are switching to Cellukork, a plastic resin cork developed by Lermer Packaging of Garwood, N.J. These are nearly as spongy as real corks and look quite a bit like the real thing.
Stags’ Leap Vintners, which says it will abandon natural corks within a year, is exploring other types of closures. “I’m talking with Alcoa,” says Carl Doumani, owner of Stags’ Leap. “There are all sorts of alternatives. We’re looking for the best and the one that has no negative connotation.”
This move away from cork comes after a decade during which the number of “corked” bottles of wine grew alarmingly. Even top-quality corks are not immune from infection by a chemical that can leave the wine with a musty or “wet newspaper” sort of smell referred to as “corked.”
The aroma of the chemical, 2-4-6-trichloroanisole (TCA), is potent; in amounts as small as four parts per trillion it can ruin an otherwise fine wine. This problem affects some 2% to 4% of all wine, according to many experts; one claims as many as 8% of all wine bottles are affected in one way or another by a bad cork.
In response, seven cork suppliers have formed a group to seek solutions. The Cork Quality Alliance, incorporated May 22, has devised a “code of ethics” for cork suppliers, and has announced plans to research ways to guarantee better-quality corks, including setting up a cork standards review panel.
A spokesman for the alliance says TCA is now believed to be a result of three conditions occurring at the same time: moisture, chlorine and mold.
Chlorine is used to whiten corks, which makes them look cleaner. The alliance says that the use of unbleached corks has reduced the TCA problem to 1% of all corks.
The use of cork to stopper wine bottles goes back to Roman times, but the practice died out 1,500 years ago, just as the Middle Ages were beginning. Legend says Dom Perignon, the cellar master at the Abbey of Hautvillers, was the first since the Romans to use cork in wine bottles. He needed it to keep the bubbles in his newly invented Champagne.
By the same token, cork was an excellent method for keeping wine safe from the ravages of the outside world, so it was adopted for still wines as well, particularly the better-quality wines intended for aging. It became a virtual symbol of quality. Centuries later, when better closures were created (screw caps and steel crown caps, to name just two), they were only used on cheaper wines.
However, the cork supply can no longer keep up with the world’s growing thirst for wine. The cork oak tree (Quercus suber) won’t grow just anywhere--nearly all cork comes from coastal climates of Spain and Portugal--and the cork can be harvested from a tree only once in eight years. The resulting shortage has forced the wine trade to use lower-quality cork that it wouldn’t have bought years ago. Consequently cork, which once guaranteed the quality of wine, is now a danger to it.
Dr. Vern Singleton at the UC Davis Department of Enology, who has done extensive research into closures for wine bottles, says he has found few effective substitutes for cork. “The only complete seal, in terms of effect,” he said, “would be an ampule, where you’d melt the glass after the wine was inside.”
Singleton says he has not seen complete research on synthetic corks, but that preliminary tests on Cellukork indicate that they might provide an adequate seal.
St. Francis winemaker Tom Mackey says he chose Cellukork as a substitute for natural cork after attending a number of dinners at which a corked bottle ruined the meal. Cellukork was tested in bottles of 1989 St. Francis Merlot. Blind taste tests concluded that there was no difference in quality between natural cork and the synthetic. In fact, Joe Martin, owner of St. Francis, says he thought the bottle closed with the synthetic corks tasted fresher than the ones that used natural cork.
St. Francis then bottled 2,100 cases of its 1991 Chardonnay; 250 cases of 1991 Gewurztraminer (to be released this summer); 150 cases of its 1990 Zinfandel, and 50 cases each of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon with Cellukorks.
The winery, seeking consumer response, placed a separate back label with an 800 telephone number on these wines. Callers are asked their reaction to the cork.
Jerry Crevans, executive vice president of Lermer, says Cellukork was developed a decade ago, “but the timing was wrong. The price of natural cork in those days was competitive, and there weren’t as many complaints about natural cork as there are now.”
The resin material is stronger than cork and resists tearing; it can’t dry out and thus won’t crumble.
Drawbacks are few: Printing them with the brand of the winery has thus far proven difficult, since the ink can smear. And some people have complained that they’re difficult to get out of bottles with a two-pronged cork puller. Traditional corkscrews work better.
“From a quality point of view, we’ve passed the test,” says Crevans, who says consumer acceptance of the synthetic cork is the only drawback facing the industry.
Doumani, however, says he has spoken with shop owners and restaurateurs around the country and “response has been very favorable. We haven’t heard anybody who’s upset about it.”
Now a second company is getting into the game. SupremeCorq of Bellevue, Wash., says it has developed a cork substitute made from an elastomeric polymer. Steve Burnell of SupremeCorq says he hoped to have the synthetic cork on the market by the end of summer.
Wine of the Week
1990 Foppiano Petite Sirah ($10) --Petite Sirah grapes used to be turned into inky reds with enough tannin to take the enamel off your teeth, but they can also make a pleasant and deeply flavored wine. Foppiano, whose Petite Sirahs are always excellent and worth aging, didn’t make one in 1989 because rains destroyed the crop, so it released the 1990 version earlier than usual. This flavorful wine has hints of black and green pepper and a racy fruit character from a small addition of Zinfandel. Nice now, it’ll be better in a year or two.