What is Charles Meltons view of screwcap closures?
Cork spoilage, either through cork taint (TCA) or random oxidation is undoubtedly a big problem. We hate to think of one of our customers opening a bottle of any of our wines, having cellared it carefully for five or more years, only to find that it’s corked! Charlie and Nicki both attended the International Screwcap Conference in New Zealand in 2004, and we came back feeling very positive about the benefits of screwcap closures. We took part in tastings of back vintages of both white and red wines under screwcap vs cork. We have also conducted our own screwcap vs cork trials here at Charles Melton for the past eight vintages and, to date, we can see no difference in quality (except, of course, we know some of the wines under cork will have TCA). To this end, the entire range of Charles Melton’s 2005 vintage Reds (except for a few export orders) – the Nine Popes, Shiraz, Cabernet, Voices of Angels, Grains of Paradise, and the Father in Law – were bottled under screwcap… as well as the
