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Unless you are buying century old vintage Port's which 99% of casual wine drinkers are not, then this is silly argument for most commercial bottles being produc

Unless you are buying century old vintage Port's which 99% of casual wine drinkers are not, then this is silly argument for most commercial bottles being produced in the last decades. The main push for plastic caps, is in markets who are not usual wine drinkers. And it is mostly driven by lower cost of plastic vs cork, and probably the marketing barrier that many people don't actual know/want how to use a cork screw.

masklinn 4y ago
> Unless you are buying century old vintage Port's which 99% of casual wine drinkers are not, then this is silly argument for most commercial bottles being produced in the last decades. You don’t need to buy century old vintage for that to be an issue. Just a few years will do the trick. Which is why winemakers dislike cork: cork leads to product loss, it’s used for the cachet, and when possibly they use hybrid / layered corks with higher reliability.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  > winemakers dislike cork: Citation desperately needed! Cork allows for an air exchange which no other artificial material does. I don't know a single Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese winemaker that even sells without cork. The only _exceptions_ to this are when they sell to retail supermarkets in northern Europe or US for whom they sometimes cap it with metal.
  - masklinn 4y ago
    > Cork allows for an air exchange which no other artificial material does. Air exchange is the one thing you least want, it means oxidation. The entire point of the cork is to keep air out. Air is the enemy. > I don't know a single Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese winemaker that even sells without cork. Again, because of the cachet of cork. Most buyers don’t even know what they’re drinking. Plastic and metal caps feel cheap, therefore buyers don’t want them.
  - detritus 4y ago
    As someone who lived in Spain for a decade or so and now spends a couple or months a year in Italy.. I'm not sure how you have arrived that opinion. Perhaps your taste is a little more expensive than what I see on supermarket shelves there, but a significant quantity of bottled wines don't use real cork stoppers.

masklinn 4y ago

> Unless you are buying century old vintage Port's which 99% of casual wine drinkers are not, then this is silly argument for most commercial bottles being produced in the last decades. You don’t need to buy century old vintage for that to be an issue. Just a few years will do the trick. Which is why winemakers dislike cork: cork leads to product loss, it’s used for the cachet, and when possibly they use hybrid / layered corks with higher reliability.

DoingIsLearning 4y ago
> winemakers dislike cork: Citation desperately needed! Cork allows for an air exchange which no other artificial material does. I don't know a single Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese winemaker that even sells without cork. The only _exceptions_ to this are when they sell to retail supermarkets in northern Europe or US for whom they sometimes cap it with metal.
- masklinn 4y ago
  > Cork allows for an air exchange which no other artificial material does. Air exchange is the one thing you least want, it means oxidation. The entire point of the cork is to keep air out. Air is the enemy. > I don't know a single Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese winemaker that even sells without cork. Again, because of the cachet of cork. Most buyers don’t even know what they’re drinking. Plastic and metal caps feel cheap, therefore buyers don’t want them.
- detritus 4y ago
  As someone who lived in Spain for a decade or so and now spends a couple or months a year in Italy.. I'm not sure how you have arrived that opinion. Perhaps your taste is a little more expensive than what I see on supermarket shelves there, but a significant quantity of bottled wines don't use real cork stoppers.