CHARDONNAY and I have a (now not-so) secret love affair going on; there’s nothing quite like it – a good bottle shows power and grace, elegance, texture, structure – the whole shebang.
CHARDONNAY and I have a (now not-so) secret love affair going on; there’s nothing quite like it – a good bottle shows power and grace, elegance, texture, structure – the whole shebang.
I have had a couple of bad experiences lately, though, my love has left me hanging. I bought a number of older bottles, eased out a cork or three over a couple of trysts only to discover bottles of brackish brown liquid that more resembled my nan’s French onion soup than the delightful tipple I was expecting.
They were oxidised – too much oxygen had broken down the organic structure of the wine and stripped it of all characters associated with wine.
There was a common theme to these bottles; they were all under cork. This is a long-running debate in the industry, but if you ask me there is nothing left to debate; cork is too risky a closure that fails far more than it should. And older chardonnay is the most noticeably affected by the shortcomings of this seal.
I need to clarify, I’m not talking about ‘corked’ wines, that’s when the cork tree in Portugal is infested with an insect and the finished cork product carries a chemical (TCA), which then taints the wine – giving it a spiky taste and an overall sweaty sock feel. I’m talking about something far more prevalent but often overlooked – the introduction of too much oxygen into the wine through the seal failing.
There are still many producers insisting on using cork to seal their wines instead of the screwcap – in France they are in the majority – but why take the risk? In my experience over the years, I think the attrition rate for corked wine is certainly more than 5 per cent and probably less than 15 per cent.
The problem with oxidisation is that it is not as easy to spot as TCA-affected wines, they don’t have that sweaty sock profile and its not until they get a bit older that they get that brown colour to them – younger wines under cork just look a bit flat.
The screwcap seal also has its shortcomings, it completely stops any oxygen at all entering the wine; and here’s the rub, some oxygen helps develop more complete and complex characters as wine gets older, so you can see that when a cork works, it’s a better seal than a screwcap.
So the conclusion for the consumer is – if you are a hunter of those swooning high points in life and willing to trawl through a sea of disappointment then cork is for you. If you want a consistent reliable product that is not subject to the whims of the oxidation gods then stick with the screwcap.
