Are Screw Caps Only for Cheap Wine?

A common misconception is that screw caps on wine bottles equates to cheap (and therefore sub-par) wine. This however, could not be more wrong.

Screw caps are great for so many reasons and these days are definitely not an indicator of bad or even cheap wine. Don’t be surprised next time you’re in a wine shop and you see a 30-plus dollar bottle of wine with a screw cap on the shelf!

Screw caps are even the preferred method of closure by some producers, especially if you happen to be from Australia or New Zealand — these countries are the world leaders in screw cap usage. While some of their wine is bulk produced and cheaper (think: that adorable Little Penguin and that cute little wallaby indicative of Yellow Tail), they certainly have their fair share of fine high-end wines that are finally starting to circulate the globe and appear on wine lists. Producers in other countries have started following the trend in recent years and have begun to give traditional cork closures a run for their money.

Below are some pros and cons of screw caps that I discovered while on the job as a wine sales rep and from just being a wine person who loves reading about geeky wine facts.

The Pros of Screw Caps:

• Easy for on-the-go opening! No need to carry a pesky corkscrew with you everywhere. You can literally just twist and serve whenever the moment is right. (This makes screw cap wines especially popular for on-the-go activities and impromptu adventures.)
• Cheaper for wineries to produce. Corks are actually a natural product derived and harvested from trees in Portugal. The cost to a producer for a single cork can be up to $5 per bottle, which, when you think about that $13 bottle of Yellowtail you just purchased, can really affect pricing for the consumer. Granted some producers use synthetic corks that just look like corks but feel like plastic (because they are made from plastic polymers), which are significantly cheaper. But then we have the whole global warming plastic recycling issue to deal with instead…
• No risk of cork taint. Cork taint produces undesirable musty aromas and flavors in the wine and is primarily caused by a compound found within the corks themselves (trichloroanisole or TCA for short). It is impossible to tell if the cork is ‘tainted’ with TCA once it makes it to the winery or even to tell if a cork with TCA is passed on to the consumer. Using screw caps in lieu of real corks reduce the risk for everyone in this scenario — imagine spending over $100 on a special bottle of wine only to get it home and open it up to find that it has cork taint and instead of being fresh and fragrant it exudes odors of old wet gym socks?
• Freshness is preserved and the end product is 100% what the winemaker intended. Some screw caps are created to keep all oxygen out of the bottle, thus keeping the wine as fresh as possible from the day it was bottled to the day it is intended to be drunk. Other screw caps are designed to let in a very specified amount of oxygen into the bottle during the aging process to allow the flavors to mature. Unlike corks, the amount of oxygen let in will be consistent among all bottles with the same screw cap.

The Cons of Screw Caps in lieu of Corks:

• What?! No celebratory ‘pop’ when you open that bottle of wine? Most wines are opened on special occasions, which are just not the same without that classic sound that makes New Year’s Eve toasts and congratulatory events so exciting. Drinking wine is an experience. It is something to be shared with friends over a warm meal or out on a patio overlooking the fields in the middle of summer. It is exciting and fun to hear that telltale ‘pop’ and know that you are about to enjoy this experience with those around you. This is even important in wines that are intended to be opened and poured table-side at exclusive restaurants.
• Screw caps cannot let the wine ‘breathe’ while aging in your cellar. It is well known that corks, being porous and all, actually allow a tiny bit of oxygen into the wine as its sitting in your cellar. This helps the wine to further develop character and complexities over the years and to mellow out into a vintage graceful beauty. As such, and with good reason, many wines topped with a screw cap are not meant for long term aging.
• Most commonly associated with ‘cheap’ wine. Hence the purpose of this post! You can think of cork usage in most cases as a form of branding — consumers see a wine bottle closed with the real cork and are more willing to pay a higher price premium than the same wine topped with a screw cap. Consumers are even willing to pay more for synthetic corks than they are for screw caps in most cases. If your other marketing skills are on point, using a cork to close your cheap bottle of wine just might have your customers paying at the high end of the price spectrum.
• You cannot show off your sweet wine key skills. This one should be a ‘nuff said, but honestly I sometimes love the look I get when I can flawlessly remove the foil wrapper with one whoosh and effortlessly pull out a cork in front of a crowd. Or when you can save the day by rescuing a crumbling cork from a delicious bottle of wine and leave no ‘floaters’ behind. As above, this is especially important in swanky restaurants with in-house sommeliers who work late nights and long weekends to expertly pick out and serve you that 1996 Chateau Latour.

All in all, screw caps can be found on both cheap and premium wine, from Australia and from around the world, and for delicious zesty fresh wines or just so-so ten-buck gluggers. There are definitive pros and cons to using each type of closure from the winery level, but for the consumer this should not be a deciding factor unless convenience is your only main criteria.