Word: corks
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Delpeuch and other Bordeaux merchants aren't waiting. In the conference room at Ginestet, Delpeuch shows off a bottle of his latest creation, aimed at the British market. It is the classic Bordeaux shape, but two elements stand out. The first is a screw top, rather than a traditional cork. The second is the label. The front has a huge drawing of a pretty château and announces the name: Bordeaux Classique. On the back, in English, is the lure: "Steeped in heritage," it reads, "the winemaker's philosophy was to take classic Bordeaux but deliver...
...combination of corks and wine bottles was a great innovation in the 1600s. But while a lot has changed since then, most natural corks haven't--at least not enough. They still dry out, crumble and shrink as they age. Some don't ever fit right, allowing air in to oxidize the wine and turn it stale. And then there's "cork taint," those moldy smells and tastes caused by trichloranisole, a chemical that some experts estimate adversely affects up to 10% of all bottles of wine. (Synthetic corks solve some of those issues but raise their own.) Recently, however...
SCREW CAPS AND GLASS STOPPERS Influential wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr. has predicted that by 2015 more wines will be opened with the twist of a wrist than the pull of a cork. Screw caps eliminate the oxidation and taint problems, are simple to open--no corkscrew required!--and reseal easily. After decades of being associated with cheap wine, they're finally overcoming their image problem. New Zealand already closes more than 80% of its wines with screw caps. The French even use them on a few prestigious Bordeaux and Burgundies...
Enterprising California winemakers are embracing them too. Don Sebastiani & Sons playfully named one of its brands Screw Kappa Napa. Randall Grahm, owner of Bonny Doon Vineyard, held a mock funeral for the cork in 2002; today 99% of his wines use screw caps. Fetzer and Stone Cellars by Beringer have gone so far as to put their single-serving screw-top wines in plastic bottles. Whitehall Lane goes a step further and uses elegant glass stoppers for its expensive bottlings...
...slurping of homemade pasta, the soft pop of a cork from a bottle of Pinot Grigio and the lilt of Italian conversation are not typically heard off the coast of West Sumatra. But then the coast of West Sumatra is not, as a rule, home to people like Nanni Casalegno. The 62-year-old Italian quit his job and left his home in Turin in 1991, after finding his heaven on earth in Indonesia. In the 15 years since, the former insurance broker and his wife, Federica, have turned 0.9 km of pristine beach on the remote island of Cubadak...