"Pinky" > wrote in message
...
> Tom, und alles, qul ragoul,and everybody,
>
> I am always interested in discussion about corks. Screw caps seem to be
the
> up and coming answer but there may be a couple of drawbacks.
>
> 1. I presume that the wine must be stored standing on end as opposed to
> lying on their sides in a wine rack. I "presume" because I would expect
> that contact of the wine with the interior of the screw cap with its
> relatively thin sealing material would be detrimental to both the wine and
> the cap.

Season's greetings, Trevor -

The screwcapped bottles I've seen can be stored indefinitely in any
position. I suspect that upside-down would not be advisable however, since
that could cause a dent in the sealing surface that could breach the
integrity of the seal. Lying down would be just fine though.

> 2. I am also concerned on the quality of the seal between the lip of the
> bottle and the internal coating of the screw cap. I confess that I haven't
> looked at what material is used currently but it always used to be a thin
> layer of cork covered with a thin paperlike plastic disc.

The Stelvin caps contain no cork. Between the cap and the neck of the
bottle is a layer of compressible (closed cell foam?) plastic, a layer of
metal foil (probably aluminum or tin) and a very thin layer of clear
plastic. You could probably store nitric acid under them!

> I have expressed my opinion on corks and corking previously -- especially
> for the small home winemaker -- currently I standardise on a particular
type
> of traditional cork available in UK and my Portuguese floor corker. I
insert
> corks dry directly from the package without any treatment whatsoever. I
have
> now been doing this for 2 years and my inherent empirical taste opinions
are
> that I am so much happier with the long term results.

For most home winemakers, corks are probably going to remain popular
indefinitely. I've had little problem with them myself, but the spectre of
"cork taint" looms large over all commercial wineries. It wouldn't be such
an issue if buying more expensive corks would eliminate the threat of TCA,
but even 50¢ corks are thus afflicted. For my first commercial release I'm
probably going to use synthetic corks - primarily for their lack of taint
problems, but also for their considerably lower cost.

> Merry Christmas to everyone.

And to you as well!

Tom S