Enobytes Wine Blog

I’m reminded every day that the appreciation and enjoyment of wine is a very personal experience. What you like may not be the cat’s meow for someone else. This was evident at the ’10 Oregon Wine Industry Symposium (OWIS), “Technical Tasting: Seeking Closure & Hi-Tech Winemaking“.

Most of the attendees were winemakers, viticulturists and industry folks in the know when it comes to high-tech stuff like RO, ultra-filtration or VA (don’t worry, we’ll get to these wine geek terms in a later post) but what blew me away at this event were all the differences in opinions between the wines we tasted.

There were a few hundred industry folks locked in a room (well, not literally) for a couple of hours to taste and discuss closures and Hi-Tech Winemaking. Harry Peterson-Nedry from Chehalem Winery moderated the session with panelists Domingo Rodriguez (Winesecrets), Clark Smith (Vinovation) and David Paige (Adelsheim Vineyard).

We kicked off the technical tasting with a comparison between cork and screw cap closures, blind tasting two white wines – identical in every way except one was bottled using cork, and the other under screw cap.  So what’s the verdict? Read the rest of this entry »

In 1997, Plumpjack, a 10,000 case Napa winery producing ultra-premium Cabernet Sauvignon bottled half of its 1997 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon with screw caps. You might ask why they would so such a thing. According to PlumpJack, six to seven percent of all wines are corked and this is not a statistic that PlumpJack [or the wine industry in general] is willing to accept. Gordon Getty, founder of PlumpJack, attests, “There really isn’t much of an argument in favor of the cork except that it has been around for so long, and if others are afraid to be first [using the alternative closure], I’m not”. PlumpJack was willing to take a chance, so in 1997 they experimented and placed screwcaps to the test. Read the rest of this entry »

I am writing this article as a follow up to support Marc’s infamous “Corks Versus Screw Caps” story. If you have not had the opportunity to read it yet, please do so. The article debuted on LocalWineEvents.com, and we received an overwhelming amount of responses, comments and questions pertaining to the post.

Many readers observed the need for educating wine stores and supermarkets about their corked wine return policies; some wondered why corkscrews were not accepting in the market; but the majority questioned the validity of bottle aging and screwcaps. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know if you have had the experience of having to return some wine to your local supermarket lately but it seems to fall into two categories. (1) They have the “Wine? You’re trying to return an opened bottle of wine?” I usually reply “Yes, it was corked; so I would like a replacement bottle”. They usually retort with “Of course it was corked; I can see the cork has been pulled out, anyway it’s against the law to give refunds on alcoholic beverages”. Read the rest of this entry »