The ‘romance’ of opening a bottle of wine is mainly to do with the ritual of
pulling the cork, particularly when using the old-fashioned type of corkscrew
such as a vine-root. At many wine-tastings or dinner parties during the last
25 years, when extracting the cork, I wish I had a £ or even a euro for every
time that someone has called out “what a lovely sound! ”, or cries of “well done!”
when I’ve finally managed to pull out a very tight cork or the remnants of a
broken one. However, this said, I now feel dragged into the new century after
having purchased a consignment of the marvellous New Zealand Lawson's
Dry Hills Sauvignon Blanc, vintage 2007, all bottled with screwcaps. The
‘Screwcap Closure Initiative’ has been endorsed by 18 New Zealand wineries,
most of which are in the Marlborough region. I believe the Lawsons is the first
to reach these shores for release in the UK market. The airtight screwcap
prevents oxidisation and eliminates the risk of cork taint. A further advantage
of the screwcap wine seal is that your wines will cellar equally well in either
upright or horizontal position. I think the srewcap will prove more popular than
synthetic corks, mainly because the latter tend to smell of plastic and are often
very tight and difficult to extract. I used to sell an Australian wine that suddenly
ceased to be bought when they introduced plastic corks. As a spokesman for
the New Zealand group, Ross Lawson comments, “The wine world is on the
brink of a closure revolution, however we do need to educate and explain the
importance of using screwcaps in much the same way that it was probably once
necessary to justify the introduction of bottles instead of amphorae.” I have
been selling his Dry Hills Sauvignon Blanc for about 4 years now and it is
consistently better than the over-hyped and over-priced Cloudy Bay, particularly
the current 2008 vintage, which has now arrived in this country. Joanna Simon,
wine writer for the Sunday Times, recommended me as a supplier of this wine
and I know her to be a big fan (of the wine that is; not me!).

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