Even if the consumer hardly perceives it, stoppers are a cost factor. An aluminium screw cap costs four to five cents, whereas a granulated cork costs ten cents. A natural cork costs about 40 cents to one euro. Another twelve to 14 cents are added on top of that for a gas chromatograph. The prices are not yet established with Helix. The expensive developmental costs must first of all be recouped.
There have never been any consistent figures with regard to cork taints. Estimates range between one and twenty per cent, but what is common to all studies is that TCA problems are clearly on the decline. With twelve billion corks per year and an assumed bottle price of only three euros, even an error rate of one per cent means a loss of about 350 million euros.
As expected, inexpensive wines get cheaper stoppers. The best corks are plugged in premium bottles, even if a Châteaux such as Margaux has played with screw caps on the second wine. Establishments such as Laroche and Lurton returned to corks after similar attempts.
Which closure has which image, is a tricky question. Marketers readily identify national preferences. In Australia and New Zealand with their extremely fresh & fruity white wines, screw caps tend towards 100 per cent, if one first excludes Penfolds and Cloudy Bay’s corked up pinot noir “Te Wahi”. To some extent vintners even have decades of experience with premium wines.
However, the demand for cork is increasing in several key export markets. This includes England, whose habits exporters are keeping a watchful eye on. The degree of acceptance of screw caps is traditionally high. But as of late, corks are in demand again, primarily among more expensive wines.
Germany – as in many questions regarding the subject – is rather conservative. An expensive wine with screw cap still ensures insecure reluctance in wide circles. The polarised discussion which is held for this reason is particularly characteristic for the country. In contrast, Italy is as usual dynamic. Many vintners have tried alternatives. Most people continue to rely on corks in the matter of bella figura.
In Europe, screw caps celebrated early successes in Austria. After the diethylene glycol wine scandal in the mid-1980s, there were signs of radical change there. Screw caps are the rule on many white wines. As is to be expected, this is vice versa in Portugal.
Traditionalists readily sneer at the USA as the world’s largest wine market with the age-old statistic that only every fourth household there even has a corkscrew at all, and they roll their eyes at garishly coloured plastic stoppers. But corks are also gaining ground here. In China, packaging and purchase price are considered an essential price for the value. Nomacorc maintains its own production facility here. But cork is regarded as the gold standard.
Barack Obama may have also noticed this. When he served his counterpart Xi Jinping a Viognier with screw cap at a dinner in the White House in 2015, the Chinese press reacted quite irritated.
Matthias Stelzig