Hi Gang,

As an offshoot to the recent post on aging corks and tainted wine,
I've a question / concern.

I've collected and swilled this stuff for about 35 years now. I'd say
that in that time, my "average" loss due to poor corks ( both tainted
and loose ) is about 5-8%.

While I love ( guess cause I'm an old curmudgeon traditionalist ) the
use of cork, I recognize that there is always room for improvement.

The hard thing for me to discern is not the capablity of the new
methods for "sealing" a bottle. I'm sure that their "seal" can be a
perfect one. What I cannot answer is the effect of a "perfect seal"
on the aging of the wine. Air transfer through a cork, albeit
miniscule, does have an impact on the aging characteristics.

Would the 27 yQuem or the 47 Huet that I still have one each of in my
cellar and expect to hold for some time yet, have aged the way that
they have if they had been perfectly sealed ??

I recognize this is really a bitch for the producers to do any kind of
an A|B comparison with since the alternative closures are so new.

From my point of view, since the number of years I have left to drink
are not what they were when I was 20, I'm sticking with cork for what
I call "cellaring" wine and then for other "new" wines .. ie the
recent crop of screwcap Sauv Blancs from NZ I've not problem with the
new closure.

As a bit of a chuckle, last night Betsy grabbed one of those NZ
screwcaps from the "quaffing" section of our cellar and spent 10
minutes trying figure how to get the foil off so that she could put in
the corkscrew !! LOL


Art Stratemeyer
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