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

[Yellow Saddle]

You mean these?


, and demands a level of manual dexterity which can become challenging after the third or fourth bottle.

When will you ever learn? I open all four at once, it saves the stabbing and cursing later on.

 

[pplpilot]

if i'm desperate i just poke a hole in the carton for the straw...

 

[Yellow Saddle]

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.

At least we know what cork does to wine over long periods. It taints a few bottles per hundred.
If we have a look at the history of plastic-lined cans for canned foods, we know it doesn't taint the food, with reasonable certainty.

Plastic corks are Satan's own work.

Corks are an anachronism that should be allowed to die, just like vinyl records and leather bicycle saddles.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

if i'm desperate i just poke a hole in the carton for the straw...

View attachment 357217

There is actually a point to be made in that image of yours. A very well-known new-world winemaker experimented for a time with bottling in PET bottles - the same stuff as bottled water comes in. His argument was that since most of his wine goes to export, he could save money (rationalised to the public as a lower carbon footprint) by saving weight on shipping. It all worked out, he did save on shipping and I thought the package did not detract from the product, but the public could not be convinced, it had to be glass. The concept failed even though on paper it is perfect.

The psychology of wine consumption is more complex than it appears.

 

[derrick]

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

Me? Unless it was a bottle of Home Made, I really can't remember

I did not know they came with any other stoppers.

 

[snorri]

I don't know, I never see the bottles, I buy wine by the glass..

 

[swee'pea99]

There is actually a point to be made in that image of yours. A very well-known new-world winemaker experimented for a time with bottling in PET bottles - the same stuff as bottled water comes in. His argument was that since most of his wine goes to export, he could save money (rationalised to the public as a lower carbon footprint) by saving weight on shipping. It all worked out, he did save on shipping and I thought the package did not detract from the product, but the public could not be convinced, it had to be glass.

Not necessarily. The Aussie wine industry a while back realised there was a massive untapped domestic market in the form of Aussie women. If only they could somehow be helped across the massive commitment barrier of opening a (whole) bottle. And so the wine box was born, and became a smash hit. Within a year or two every Aussie home had a box of white in the fridge, a box of red on the fridge, and a mother fast turning into an alcoholic, aided by the limitless boredom of life in an Aussie suburb and the ease of relieving the tedium by having just a small glass with lunch. And what harm can another small glass do? And onshe you've had a couple of shmall glashes there goes the afternoon sho what the hell letsh make an arvo of it. Cheersh!

 

[mjr]

You mean these?

Yes, those awful awful things!

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?

A phallus-shaped unnecessary lump of metal is a design classic to you? For it to be functionally superb, it would need to function superbly, which it doesn't.

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.

There's lots of designs. Personally, I like the minimalist rectangular ones:

and there's not much manual dexterity needed. Much less than's needed to avoid pinching bits in the phallus levers.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWHYlVczncQ

If we have a look at the history of plastic-lined cans for canned foods, we know it doesn't taint the food, with reasonable certainty.

Is it the same plastic?

If only they could somehow be helped across the massive commitment barrier of opening a (whole) bottle.

Vac-u-vin or similar. Cartons seem no better than wine stoppers.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Is it the same plastic?

No it is not, but don't go and spoil my point with facts.

It's actually an epoxy and the seal in a screwtop cap is made from who-knows-what.

 

[jayonabike]

Most of my wine bottles have corks, and I use a waiters friend to open them

 

[hopless500]

Yesterday. My fizzy stuff has real corks

 

[Tin Pot]

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

Me? Unless it was a bottle of Home Made, I really can't remember

You need to up your game mate.

 

[Hill Wimp]

Yesterday. My fizzy stuff has real corks

That's a lot of corks I can tell you

 

[TheDoctor]

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...

Far more likely to be that Australia and NZ don't have cork trees. I always find it amusing that wine makers will go on about the nuances given by different oak barrels, but then use cork to seal the wine just because it's squidgy. The wine contacts the cork at least as much as it does the oak.

 

[nickyboy]

I presume there is no technical reason why sparking wine has to be corked, in the same way that lemonade works fine with a screw cap. I presume it's down to the "essential" aspect of getting a cork "pop". I'd be quite happy with screw cap sparkling wine

To answer the OP, it seems most Spanish/Portuguese wine is still corked, even the inexpensive stuff and I had a bottle a couple of weeks ago. Is it some unofficial support for the Spanish/Portugese cork industry? Most of my wine is New World and that seems to be almost 100% screw cap