When was the last time you had a bottle of wine with a cork stopper?

[GrumpyGregry]

only about 1/4 of the wine we drink has screw tops. Personally, I hope vinolok is the future.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Bloody hell, you've got a good memory.

...and a big bag.

 

[Hill Wimp]

...and a big bag.

 

[cisamcgu]

A wine loving friend on mine once said "If they had had screw-top technology centuries, do you think they would still have used corks ?" - which is a fair point I think. He was a fan of the screw-top, but not of plastic corks which he thought was the worst of both worlds

 

[Beebo]

Sparkling wine still tends to use real corks.

 

[Jimidh]

This weekend - most of the reds I buy still have corks but I can't remember the last bottle of white we had with a cork.

 

[Dave Davenport]

I buy most of my wine from Lidl and it's always got a cork.

 

[PK99]

A wine loving friend on mine once said "If they had had screw-top technology centuries, do you think they would still have used corks ?" - which is a fair point I think. He was a fan of the screw-top, but not of plastic corks which he thought was the worst of both worlds

for wines made for early drinking screw cap is the best - cheaper and not prone to cork taint, but for wines designed to age in bottle over years, it is not so clear.

The point used to be made that screw cap isolates the wine but cork allows some oxygen ingress over time in storage, but newer types of screw cap have calculated rates of oxygen ingress.

Some of the big names in French wine have been doing parallel bottlings - still selling under cork but also bottling and storing under stelvin and doing long term comparisons on aging characteristics.

 

[MontyVeda]

Tuesday... it was a Rioja from Sainsbury's

 

[mjr]

About a week ago. My right arm's still hurting from the effort of attempting to get at the liquid.

Waiter's friend. Why haven't all other types of corkscrew died out yet, especially those ludicrously huge double arm lever affairs that sometimes take two squeezings just to snap a cork?

 

[mjr]

A wine loving friend on mine once said "If they had had screw-top technology centuries, do you think they would still have used corks ?" - which is a fair point I think. He was a fan of the screw-top, but not of plastic corks which he thought was the worst of both worlds

I've an semi-irrational preference for cork because I feel it's too soon to trust plastics in contact with wine for long periods. At least we know what cork does when it goes wrong!

I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone say they like those plastic bungs.

 

[swee'pea99]

Waiter's friend. Why haven't all other types of corkscrew died out yet, especially those ludicrously huge double arm lever affairs that sometimes take two squeezings just to snap a cork?

You mean these?

They're wonderful! Among the most beautiful and elegant 'things' in the average home, and functionally superb. How many honest to God design classics can you get for a couple of quid? Nothing wrong with the waiter's friend, but it has no beauty, and demands a level of manual dexterity which can become challenging after the third or fourth bottle.

 

[PaulB]

How about this for a corkscrew? Designed by the famous Tullio Campagnolo, no less! I mean, lesh after my breakfasht and evryfing.

 

[PK99]

just cam across this on Wiki;

During 1972 more than half of the Australian bottled wine went bad due to corking. A great deal of anger and suspicion was directed at Portuguese and Spanish cork suppliers who were suspected of deliberately supplying bad cork to non-EEC wine makers to help prevent cheap imports.

which goes some way to explaining the antipodean move away from cork...

 

[numbnuts]

When was the last time you had a bottle of wine ....

I don't drink now and I can't remember