Replacement of natural cork. What does a wine cork say?

Winemaking is shrouded in a mass of myths. Take, for example, the assertion that there are no good, but inexpensive wines! What do you think about the fact that organic wines are better than traditional ones? Today we are looking into why some wines are sealed with screw caps, find out whether it is possible to buy wine in Moscow cheaper than in Europe, and determine whether sulfites are to blame for our headache.

For help in preparing the material, I thank the Grand Cru wine cellar chain and personally Andrey Otmenov.

Screw caps close only bad wines

The choice of cork is a matter of wine positioning, not economy. Depending on how the winemaker sees his consumer, he decides which cork will close his wine.

More Old World winemakers are using screw caps, which used to be more common in Argentine or South African wines. Why? Not because wine has changed, but because the nature of its consumption has changed: it is now important for many to get the product and enjoy it here and now, without waiting, without aging in the cellar. A screw cap compresses the waiting process - already after 7-8 years from the year of harvest, we have in the bottle a wonderful and very mature product. A wooden cork would stretch the life of the wine - that's great, but sometimes, as we have already found out, you don't want to wait. There is one “but” - wines closed with a screw cork, even in a glass, behave very quickly, quickly give you pleasure, but just as quickly slip away. What to do? It is worth drinking them quickly, in good company, when wine is not the center of the evening.

Good wine - only French, and it is very difficult to understand

We have to admit that the French are great teachers! It would not be an exaggeration to say that a good half of the world's winemakers are educated in France. Moreover, the leading wine projects of the New World are made either by French winemakers or with the participation of French oenologists. Russian winemaking- not an exception. The whole wine world uses the experience of the French.

A simple example about the complexity of French wines and their classification: you can stop at arithmetic and not go further, but if you are interested, you will discover algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, and you will enjoy their complexity. So it is with wine - many start with the wines of the New World, get fed up and want to develop, gradually coming to France.

Organic wines are much better than conventional wines.

We must start with the fact that every winemaker, regardless of what views on the cultivation of the vine he holds, is forced to carefully monitor the vine and the land, simply because grapes are a very, very capricious plant and literally everything can interfere with its proper ripening. , anything. And every winemaker makes every effort to get wine not just good, but the most worthy.

Do not forget that the process of wine production is strictly regulated in most wine regions of the world. If, for example, all wine zone threatened by some disease that could damage the vine, all winemakers, regardless of their views, will be forced to spray their vineyards simply because it is the law.

You can't buy quality wine in Russia

First you need to understand what quality wine is. A quality wine is a wine from a specific producer, a terroir wine (i.e. originating from a specific area). It turns out that behind each bottle on the Grand Cru shelf there is a specific vineyard, variety and winemaker. If the assertion that quality wines not in Russia, it would be true, then people would not come to Moscow with enviable regularity and at the invitation of wine trading companies, among which is the owner of Grand Cru company Simple, the world's leading winemakers.

In Russia wine is much more expensive than in Europe

The logistics and customs systems in Russia are indeed arranged in such a way that not a single wine trading company and not a single wine shop cannot sell wine at European prices. But there is also good news- now on the shelves of Grand Cru there are bottles bought at the old rate, so right now buyers have the opportunity to buy excellent wine at excellent prices. And if you add (or rather, subtract!) the amount of the discount, you can get prices that are not available in Europe now. For example, if you buy 6 bottles, you automatically get a 20% discount.

To avoid headaches from wine, you need to choose wine without sulfites

In order not to have a headache from wine, you need to find your wine and use it consciously: decant if it requires it, make sure that the wine is served correctly: do not drink beer after wine, do not switch from tannic wines to lighter ones, but then back to saturated.

If, upon opening the bottle, you smell sulfur, the easiest thing you can do is pour it into a decanter and leave it for at least an hour.

Only expensive wine is good

Expensive wine sells itself, in particular, by its price. With budget wines, everything is much more complicated, and finding among them those that will make you pleasantly surprised is not a trivial task. Excellent wines, which cost less than 500 rubles, are in the Grand Cru assortment, for example, Bruni Nero D’Avola Terre Siciliane IGT, a full-bodied, tart and good-quality Sicilian wine that costs only 460 rubles. Or chardonnay made in the Burgundy style by the Chilean manufacturer Viña Maipo — 640 rubles.

It is the search for inexpensive, but excellent wines among French, Italian, American, Argentinean and South American wines that will be devoted wine evening which we are with wine cellar Grand Cru on Prospekt Mira 68 is being arranged next Thursday, February 18th. We will figure out how to drink sparingly in a crisis, without saving on pleasure. The evening will be hosted by the incomparable Andrey Otmenov - he is known as an excellent speaker and a great connoisseur by those who were at the first meeting of my wine club and those who went to short wine courses at Grand Cru.

REGISTER IS CLOSED.

A sacred moment for every wine lover is removing the cork from the bottle. This is a real ritual - to open the bottle gracefully, avoiding a loud pop. An experienced sommelier will not be in a hurry to pour wine into glasses. First, sniff the cork. Already by her appearance and smell, he will draw the first conclusions about the state of the wine. And after the first sip, the Truth will be revealed...

Is wine good? Does it live up to expectations? Is it ready, or would it be worth lying down? Or maybe it's already overripe? The answer will appear only after a thorough examination of the contents of the bottle. On the "eye", "nose" and "mouth". It is at this moment that a terrible and irreparable fact can be revealed: wine has the smell and taste of cork!
Cork disease.

Of course, you can drink such wine, but it’s hardly worth it - you won’t get any pleasure. Trichloranisole (Trichloranisol, abbreviated as TCA) is responsible for spoiled mood - Chemical substance which causes "cork disease" in wine. It appears in wine due to the oxygen that enters the bottle through a porous natural cork.

According to statistics, every tenth bottle sealed traditional way, infected with "cork disease". Those who understand wine will notice it immediately, and those who are not very good may not understand what is the matter. Attribute discomfort to the wine itself, or its producer. And henceforth the wine of this brand will not be bought.

How to make sure that oxygen does not get into the wine and does not spoil it? Should we believe the myth that wine "breathes" under a cork stopper, and only under it can it ripen correctly?

As long as manufacturers use only natural corks, they will take risks. As long as consumers only buy wine with natural cork, they too will be at risk.

Attempts to prevent disease.

For many hundreds of years, natural corks were considered the only possible way capping wine bottles. Neither producers nor consumers of wine thought that there were any other options. Cork oaks have become an integral part of the world wine culture during this time.

The debate about whether natural cork is the best that mankind has come up with began relatively recently, in the last century, when artificial corks and screw caps appeared. But these and other alternative closures are still the subject of much controversy.

Trying to invent cork that is not affected by TCA is reminiscent of the medieval search for the magic formula for gold. They did everything with natural cork - they poisoned it with chemicals, subjected it to microwave radiation. All in vain. The possibility of contamination of wine remains a "headache" for winemakers to this day. Well, you'll have to explore alternatives.

How it all began.

Cork began to be actively used already in antiquity. They were used by the Assyrians, Egyptians and Greeks. At that time, wine was stored in amphorae, they were plugged with pieces of baked clay wrapped in strips of cloth and reinforced with sealing wax or resin. Later, according to the records of Cato the Elder (234-149 BC), a major politician and part-time author of many scientific treatises, that have survived to this day, after fermentation, the wine was poured into jugs, closed with cork corks and poured with resin. With the fall of the Roman Empire (5th century AD), this was gradually forgotten. Including because the Iberian Peninsula, the main supplier of cork oak, was in the hands of Muslim Moors for several centuries. Until the late Middle Ages, vessels were corked with ordinary wooden plugs, and sealed with resin or wax on top.

With the advent of bottles, glass stoppers were not used for long, but at the beginning of the 17th century, the method of corking with stoppers from natural wood- bark oak. The famous monk Dom Perignon (1638-1715) experimented a lot with them. Because of different sizes bottles first used conical corks. To make it easier to pull out later, they were only half-filled into the neck. Only with the advent of corkscrews did they accept their modern cylindrical shape and began to fully enter the bottle.

The first primitive corkscrews were a metal "picker", which was used to crush the cork in a bottle until it crumbled into small pieces. Part of the crumbs inevitably fell into the wine. And only at the end of the 17th century did corkscrews appear in the modern sense of the word: from a screw and a handle. They were called "worms". Since that time, natural cork has supplanted all other closure options. The cork industry boomed.

Cork oaks.

Natural corks are made from the thick bark of the Quercus suber cork oak. Trees grow up to 8-10 meters in height, live up to 200 years and are used throughout life: every 9-12 years they remove the bark. Thus, the tree "fruits" up to 16 times in its life. Oak must be twenty-five years old to be used for industrial purposes. For production best caps need trees at the age of 45 years.

More than half of all corks in the world are made in Portugal: about 170 thousand tons of products are produced here annually. In the capital of the Portuguese cork industry, the city of Alentejo, tens of thousands of people feed on this trade. Other major producing countries are Spain, Algeria, Italy and Morocco.

Prices for corks range from 50 eurocents to 1 euro, and the best examples reach 2 euros apiece. Due to the high demand for natural corks, many manufacturers, in pursuit of profit, do not follow the technology. The cork layer is removed from the oaks earlier than necessary.

Cork production.

More than one year passes from the moment the cork layer is cut off from the tree to the capping of the bottle. First, the bark is removed from the oak, which must be aged for a year. Then she is subjected heat treatment, cut into plates and sorted by quality. Next, the plates are cut into strips, from which cylindrical plugs are later turned. Their length is from 25 to 60 mm. The longer the cork, the more expensive the wine it closes. Cork cylinders are sanded to provide a smooth finish. The cork is then bleached and waxed to make it slippery. At the very end, the name of the winery or the name of the producer, as well as the vintage year of the wine, is applied to the outer end of the cork. The inscriptions are burned or printed under pressure. When capping bottles under the cork, sulfur dioxide (SO2) is often used - a gas used in conservation.

Natural cork is an almost perfect and very aesthetic way to seal a bottle. It is light, elastic, practically unaffected by temperatures, rarely rots, right production and storage skips right amount air, has long term service life (20-50 years) and is still the most common material for capping wine bottles.

Types of traffic jams.

Standard wine cork has a diameter of 24 mm and is inserted into a bottle neck with a diameter of 18 mm. Even after many years in the bottle, once removed, the cork will return to its original size within 24 hours.

The air humidity in the room where the wine is stored should be about 75% (at a temperature of about +10C). Then the cork will not release moisture from the bottle and will not let too much air into it. With extreme temperature fluctuations, the cork loses its tightness.

Pressed cork (cork-agglomerate) does not consist of a single piece of wood, but of its waste - cork chips and even flour, glued together with wood glue or resin. Such corks are much cheaper than solid ones. Often, a solid plate is glued to both ends of the cork so that the wine does not come into contact with the glue. These corks are used to seal inexpensive wines.

Champagne corks have the appearance of a mushroom with a hat from 31 to 17.5 mm in diameter, consist of three glued parts. The part adjacent to the wine is usually made from a single piece of cork.

Cork and wine.

It is often asked whether, when wine is stored in a bottle sealed with natural cork, a certain amount of air enters the bottle, and thus the wine “breathes”. Many experts confirm this fact, while others deny it: if oxygen got into the bottle, the wine would oxidize and become unusable. serious wine estates monitor the condition of corks in wines intended for long-term storage. Some producers offer a service such as recapping old wines (for example, "Biondi Santi" in Italy or "Penfolds" in Australia).

IN Lately cases of low-quality natural corks hitting the market, the wood of which has too large pores, have become more frequent. This can cause air to get into the wine and also cause the wine to leak out of the bottle.

Unsuccessfully corked wine can get "cork disease", which manifests itself in musty smell damp, rotting wood or leather. If the disease is advanced, the taste of wine also changes - it becomes bitter and astringent.

Alternative.

Until now, more than 60% of all wines are sealed with natural corks. The ideal alternative is a screw cap. So far, few manufacturers have dared to use them. According to winemakers, a certain cultural component of the wine bottle image is being lost. But environmental and economic aspects may win in the future traditional performances.

Kill germs in the microwave.

In 2000, the media wrote about a sensation - a panacea for TCA was found! The Delfin method (abbreviation for Direct Environmental Load Focussed Inactivation), developed by the Portuguese company Juvanal Ferreira da Silva, which produces natural corks, and the German company Ohlinger, consisted in a special treatment of corks with microwaves.

The bark of a tree, especially the cork oak, is riddled with numerous pores in which microorganisms live. In addition, the cork bark contains liquid. If its amount exceeds 8-10%, harmful microorganisms, such as mold, begin to develop in the pores. It is she who causes the formation of TCA in natural plugs. When using the Delfin method, harmful microorganisms (primarily mold spores) die. But not all. Over the years, it became clear that wines sealed with such corks are still susceptible to disease.

Membranes and hats on guard.

Three years later, there were reports in the press about a new sensational discovery associated with the victory over the TCA. An Australian manufacturer has launched a natural cork called ProCork with special membranes at both ends that prevent contact between cork and wine. At the same time, the ability of wine to "breathe" through the cork was not limited. Thanks to hermetic membranes, "uninvited guests" such as mold remained, as it were, immured in a traffic jam.

But this time, too, the jubilation was premature. Whether the TCA was somehow leaking into the wine through the sidewalls of the cork, or it happened already at the moment the cork was removed from the bottle, only the taste of cork is often found in wines sealed with ProCork.

On the same principle as ProCork, the H.I.S.S. capping method functions. (Hermetic Internal Solid Seal), developed by German engineer Ludwig Hiss. He also puts protection on corks - a pewter hat. When the bottle is opened, the cap flies out along with the cork. Whether such protection against TCA helps is debatable.

And yet it breathes!

The Italian company Oliver Ogar decided to completely abandon experiments with natural cork and invent an artificial one, but with the qualities inherent in oak cork. This cork consists of three parts - a hollow middle and "breathing" membranes at the ends. Through these membranes, wine enters a small amount of oxygen so that it "breathes", but not in those volumes so that TCA appears.

It is difficult to say how the amount of oxygen transmitted in these plugs will be controlled. Therefore, there can be no faith in a complete cure for the "cork disease". But manufacturers give guarantees: their Blue corks are designed for wines that are laid for aging for 24 months, while Pro corks will keep wines for 5 years. The method is patented in 37 countries.

We have focused only on some alternative options for capping wine bottles. All efforts modern manufacturers are aimed at preventing the development of the ubiquitous TCA on the cork and in the wine. And very often the search worthy alternative rest against the stone wall of age-old traditions, habits and images. Good wine should only be closed with a cork, preferably natural. Lemonades are closed with screw caps, or, in extreme cases, cheap wines for making mulled wine. Not to mention wines in bag-in-box boxes - a decent manufacturer would not agree to such packaging. But it’s very convenient, and the TCA certainly won’t break through!

Manufacturers are rushing about in search of a panacea. Glass stoppers have proven to be excellent. But this is a very expensive way of capping: all equipment must be reconfigured for it, a standard bottle is not suitable in this case.

To date, perhaps the main opponent of corks are screw caps. The French came up with a complicated modification: artificial corks in combination with screw caps are hidden under capsules and try to disguise them as natural cork.

And the Australians have patented another method that combines the reliability of a screw cap and natural cork - CorkScrewCap. In appearance, it is indistinguishable from a regular cork.

Consumers are deceived, they buy, they are disappointed because of the violation of traditional expectations, or, conversely, they rejoice when they find healthy wine under the cork.

And manufacturers continue to rack their brains: how to combine the centuries-old consumer ideas about natural wine, natural cork and the requirements of modern times that put quality, guarantee and progress above all else?

Find disease without opening bottles.

Specialists at the University of California at Davis (Davis) have developed a scanner that allows you to identify spoiled wine while still in a closed bottle. The operation of the device is based on the chemical sensitivity of nuclear magnetic resonance. During the study, the bottle is placed in a special cylinder (about 180 cm high), radio waves are passed through it, which are absorbed by wine and substances uncharacteristic of wine (vinegar, acid aldehyde, etc.) in different ways. This is how unwanted elements are detected. The scanning process takes from 2 to 20 minutes.

The scanner is able to detect TCA in wine, even if its concentration does not exceed 1 ppt (one part per quintillion). The human nose detects TCA only at a concentration of 3-8 ppt. Yes and define anything through closed bottle not even the nose of the most distinguished sommelier can.

Perhaps today such a scanner - The best way for the consumer to protect himself from the possibility of acquiring diseased wine. But the manufacturer remained unprotected. He still faces the difficult problem of choosing the only right way to close the bottle so that the wine can develop quietly in the bottle for many years and not get sick. Then, after 50 years of exposure, it would be possible to change the cork for a new one. Look, by then they'll have come up with something reliable.

The main character of the post is a cork. A brief overview of the types of corks used for wine bottles.

Bottles are sealed with corks to protect their contents from oxidation, contamination by microorganisms, splashing, as well as for ease of transportation and storage. Corks come in a variety of materials and shapes used. The most famous is cork, made from ... cork. That is, from the bark of a cork tree.

Cork Oak - Cork Oak or Quercus Suber

As Denis Rudenko, a well-known authority and wine connoisseur, wrote, “Most trees produce a very thin cork layer, and only a small number of species have a surface layer thick enough to produce cork. Of these, only one species, Quercus suber oak, produces cork bark on an industrial scale. Natural cork is a porous material of a cellular structure with hermetically sealed air chambers, which give the cork elasticity and the ability to recover to its previous volume after significant compression.

Grove of cork (cork) oaks

The generally accepted breeding center for this species of oak and, accordingly, the world center for the production of corks is Portugal.

Portugal. Cork oak bark, drying and straightening stage*

However, with all the advantages, natural cork has one, but very unpleasant by-effect. Sometimes the plug gets sick. Cork disease is a defect that manifests itself in an unpleasant smell, reminiscent of the smell of mustiness, moldy floorcloth, wet cardboard. The source of the defect is a whole family of compounds containing chlorine and bromine. The most common of these is called 2,4,6-trichloranisole (TCA). The unpleasant smell of the defect drowns out the natural aromas of the wine, even at a minimum concentration of a few parts per million. Note that the defect spoils only the smell of wine. It does not become harmful and does not pose a threat to health.

Branch of the bark

A couple of decades ago, the prevalence of this defect reached 8-9%. This meant that almost one in ten bottles of wine in the world were affected by cortical disease. Of course, a business cannot afford to waste so much product. And winemakers began to actively fight against this. On the one hand, they began to use new methods of capping - silicone corks, aluminum screw caps and even glass ones. On the other hand, they have become much stricter hygiene rules. The spread of cork disease has halved and is now estimated at 3-4% of bottles sealed with natural cork.

Types of traffic jams

The photo shows some examples of traffic jams of various types:

• natural (second from left), made from a single piece of oak bark
• synthetic, (far left, plastic)
• pressed from cork shavings (far right)
• twin-top: pressed from cork chips with glued circles on top and bottom

Alternatives

Synthetic and pressed corks are significantly cheaper to manufacture than natural ones made from oak bark. At the same time, they are similar to the traditional cork both externally and functionally, have good resistance to compression, fit tightly to the neck of the bottle and are designed to preserve the traditional ritual of opening the bottle with a corkscrew.

glass stopper

Other types of alternative closures are glass stoppers and screw stoppers. They, of course, already exclude the ritual of using a corkscrew to open. But the ease of opening the bottle and the repeated use, i.e. the ability to securely close an unfinished bottle is their obvious advantage. The production of screw caps in the world today is several billion pieces a year. It is believed that 80-90% of New Zealand's wines are produced using screw caps. Glass corks have gained popularity with some German and Italian wine producers, especially those located in the Dolomites and Sicily. Their advantage is turnover - they can be easily sterilized and used several times.

Screw plugs made of aluminum foil

Let us quote Denis Rudenko once again: “Most manufacturers alternatives argue that wines in bottles with their corks are stored and developed no worse than when using natural corks. The buyer, meanwhile, does not know whether to believe these statements and, accordingly, how to relate to wine sealed with non-traditional materials. Laboratory research show that the difference between various types plugs are there. A cork made of bark, which occupies a significant part of the free space in the neck, leaves much less air in the bottle by volume, but creates a slight overpressure, which distinguishes it from a screw cork. One would expect that in this case the wines would be stored in different ways. However, the tasting experience shows that even for enough long terms storage, in 2-3 years, a significant difference in wine under different types closure is not observed.

Stoppers (temporary traffic jams)

Conclusion

We have repeatedly said that the vast majority of wines produced in the world are not intended for long-term storage. And this means that for wines less than three years old, it does not matter what exactly they are corked - with a screw cork, glass, synthetic or natural. So if you buy a bottle for the evening, and this is not a wine for many years of aging, then you should not bother with the appearance of the cork.

Natural cork

For collection wines, expensive, designed for long-term aging, expensive natural cork is still used - traditional cork, and it seems that no changes should be expected in this segment in the near future.

Note: Photo of drying cork tree bark taken from Facebook Yehuda Nahar, winemaker Jezreel Valley Winery, יקב עמק יזרעאל

One buyer stated:
- “Give me, please, wine with a screw cap. Any, but always with screw - the rest of the wines are fake ... "
- “And even Chateau Margaux for 55 thousand in the wine cabinet Do you think it’s also a fake ?!” I was horrified.
“Hmmmm… that might not be.”
The buyer considered Novy Svet wines with screw caps to be the only real ones in Russia. Strange man, usually think the opposite.

renovation
There are several types of wine corks. They have various characteristics and are used for various purposes.

Its properties are unique - it passes a certain amount of air, but is impervious to liquid. Cork gives wines the opportunity to develop, evolve under the influence of oxygen.
The main disadvantage of this type of capping is the possibility of developing cork disease (see the article “Diseases of wine”).

To date, the main producer of natural cork is Portugal with its extensive plantings of oak. It is followed by Spain, France and Algeria.

The highest quality that can be produced from a layer of cork oak bark is solid cork. It has the best characteristics (mechanical, impermeable to air and liquid) and is designed to seal wines with aging potential. The best wines sealed with a solid cork can be stored and age slowly for decades.

Produced from the remains of oak bark agglomerated cork. It is a compressed mixture of bark granules and edible glue. It allows more oxygen to pass through and is designed to seal wines that are supposed to be drunk young for several years.

An excellent alternative to agglomerated is , which has slightly better characteristics. It is an agglomerated one, to the ends of which solid disks are glued. This type cork is also used to seal champagne and sparkling wines.

Synthetic cork

Produced from inorganic materials. The main difference from cork is its impermeability to oxygen. Therefore, the wine does not develop in the bottle, but remains the way the winemaker created it. Used for capping young bright fresh wines with a rich fruity aroma. Virtually eliminates the risk of cork disease, but at the same time there is the possibility of a musty aroma.

It has gained immense popularity lately. Her star began to rise in the countries of the New World - Australia and New Zealand. This cork preserves the freshness of the unusually fruity wines of these hot countries. But in given time this type of cork has gained some popularity in the countries of the Old World, and to be more specific, several eminent manufacturers in France and Italy have corked bottles in this way. Undoubted advantage is the ease of opening the bottle. Now you can easily enjoy good wine in any place convenient for you. Beer lovers, take note!

Human thought does not stand still and glass cork has recently become popular! This phenomenon is especially typical for Italy. And soon the beloved Chianti will appear in a new closure. This cork is also intended for young wines not intended for long storage. Wine in a bottle does not develop.

Everyone who has ever opened a bottle of wine remembers this special feeling when the corkscrew round after round enters the elastic piece of bark that seals the neck of the bottle. Light cotton- and wine poured into the glasses. Of course, a cork is not just a device that reliably clogs a bottle and protects wine from pathogenic bacteria, foreign objects and exhalation. This is part of the ritual performed by the sommelier when serving wine, and the cork occupies almost the main place in it. Why? Has it always been like this? Will it continue to be so?

Nowadays, more and more bottles on the shelf of the liquor store are stoppered with alternative stoppers - polymeric, reproducing the look and shape of traditional cork stoppers, aluminum screw stoppers and even glass stoppers. What is the reason for this departure from the usual type of closure and how should such wines be treated?

Most trees produce a very thin cork layer, and only a small number of species have a surface layer thick enough to produce cork. Of these, only one species, oak Quercus suber , gives cork bark on an industrial scale. Natural cork is a porous material of a cellular structure with hermetically sealed air chambers, which give the cork elasticity and the ability to recover to its previous volume after significant compression. However, like everyone natural material, the tube is inhomogeneous. It contains cracks and caverns of various shapes and depths. During the growth of the bark, microorganisms accumulate in these places, which subsequently, being in contact with wine, can cause the appearance in the bottle of substances that change the bouquet of wine, and in a “dissonant” direction.

The most common type of "corking disease" is the accumulation of trichloranisole (2,4,6-TCA) in bottles.

This substance manifests itself already in extremely low concentration in the form bad smell reminiscent of the smell of stagnant dirty water, wet floor cloth, etc.

The amount of wine that annually becomes unfit for consumption reaches, according to various estimates, 5-8% of the total volume of wines corked with natural cork. And sniffing the cork and the wine before serving it to the client, the restaurant's sommelier checks the wine for the absence of this defect. It is quite obvious that no business (let's not forget that winemaking is not just a part of culture and culinary, but first of all a big business) can afford to throw away such an amount finished products"in the trash" due to poor quality packaging. It is these motives that have prompted modern wine producers to actively experiment with alternative textures and materials.

The simplest substitute, the cheapest, but also the most problematic was the polyethylene cork, "enveloping" the neck of the bottle like a sealing wax filling. Very popular during the Soviet Union, this type of bottle capping exists to this day, firmly holding its niche in the price segment of drinks up to 100 rubles in retail.

Polyethylene smelling like a chemical plasticizer in this price category does not affect the smell of the drink too much, fully matching the content.

In a higher price category, polyethylene corks have been replaced by synthetic ones, reproducing the traditional oak bark cork in shape. They are also inexpensive to manufacture, but have significantly more advantages and fewer disadvantages: they have good resistance to compression, fit snugly around the neck of the bottle and allow you to save the “ritual” of opening the bottle with a corkscrew. Various companies supplying this type of product to the market offer all sorts of improvements that, they say, bring synthetic corks closer to natural corks, and the number of winemakers using this type of closure is steadily increasing.

Almost all "budget" wine from Latin America, Australia and South Africa is now sealed in this way.

Producers have taken a completely different path. metal caps for bottles. Made from aluminum foil and designed for threaded bottles, these stoppers allow the consumer to securely seal an open but unfinished bottle. The production of screw caps is growing like an avalanche: if in 1980 the leader of this industry produced about 20 million pieces, then already in 2003 - 300 million pieces, and in 2006 - 2 billion pieces. According to statistics, from 80% to 90% of New Zealand wines are currently produced using this type of closure.

Most alternative producers claim that bottled wines with their corks store and develop just as well as natural corks. The buyer, meanwhile, does not know whether to believe these statements and, accordingly, how to relate to wine sealed with non-traditional materials.

Laboratory studies show that there is a difference between different types of cork.

A cork made of bark, which occupies a significant part of the free space in the neck, leaves much less air in the bottle by volume, but creates a slight overpressure, which distinguishes it from a screw cork. One would expect that in this case the wines would be stored in different ways. However, tasting experience shows that even at sufficiently long storage periods, 2-3 years, there is no significant difference in wine under different types of closure.

Moreover, wines that have not been produced for long-term storage (the lion's share of such wines on the market) often look “under the screw” or “with plastic” much fresher and younger than the same wines “under the cork”. So, if you are not a staunch traditionalist who believes that any innovation should be “aged” for a couple of decades, feel free to buy such bottles.

There is an opinion that by the appearance of the cork, you can learn a lot about the contents of the bottle even at the stage of choosing and buying wine.

Indeed, the type and quality of the cork is indirectly related to the quality of the wine: natural cork is more expensive than substitutes, and therefore most producers use it only for their best wines. Moreover, the longer the cork, the more expensive it is and the less often it can be found in a bottle with mediocre wine.

True, in order to examine the cork, you need to remove the protective cap from it. In our wine supermarkets and boutiques, this behavior is not welcomed, and you will most likely be asked to buy a “bad” bottle, so curiosity and inquisitiveness can cost you bottles of the “wrong” wine and wasted money.

Therefore, you should not experiment, especially since the “capsule” itself can give the same information. If it is unevenly cut and made of the cheapest shrink film, then you can hardly count on expensive cork under it and good wine. On the contrary, if this decorative element is made of aluminum foil, tightly and evenly fits the bottle, then this increases the chances of buying wine, which the manufacturer himself positions as one of his best.

In some cases, the appearance of the cap can say even more: for example, if on the top of a French wine capsule you see a stylized seal of green or of blue color in the form of a female profile, then in your hands you are holding wine that was produced for domestic market France, and all due taxes have been paid from him.

And the capsule of Austrian wine (with the exception of table wine) must carry, also on top, the image of the Austrian flag (three stripes - two red and one white). Under such protective caps, you will undoubtedly find just the good old cork.

Despite all the assurances of the cork industry leaders that their alternative products are designed for long-term storage wines, few producers still dare to use something other than natural cork for their collection wines. The traditional bark cork reigns supreme in this segment. Quercus suber. Whether they are right or it's just "unhealthy conservatism" - time will tell.