À bas les screwcaps! I can’t believe how easily screwcap wine bottles have been foisted on us. Australian vintners seem to have impregnated drinkers with a chip that programs them to parrot something along the lines of “oh well, the wine is just as good and it’s more convenient this way” every time this issue is raised.
Well, leaving aside the centuries-old ritual of finding an implement, straining your (huge and powerful) biceps, and eventually uncorking the bottle with a satisfying “phut”, no I don’t think screwcap wine tastes as good. It’s true that the problems associated with cork—such as “corked wine” or “cork taint”—go away if you use a nasty screwcap, but how common are such trials?
But even I couldn’t tell the difference between them I would still be against screwcaps. They represent everything I hate about the homogenization of the modern world. In the not-so-long-ago good old days it was “ok kids, here’s your soda (pphsistt) and now let dad have his (“phut”)”. With screwcaps, what’s the difference? Metal screwcaps are also a good example of capitalists imposing an environmentally unfriendly solution that benefits no-one but themselves. Here is the Wikipedia entry on corks:
The cork industry is generally regarded as environmentally friendly. The sustainability of production and the easy recycling of cork products and by-products are two of its most distinctive aspects.
So the backlash starts here, well at least when I have finished this (screwcap) bottle of Sauvignon.
Curmudgeonly yours--Torn
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