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NEW NORMAL

PLEASE CLOSE!

Whoa! It’s that big of a deal? You bet it is! It is understandable to think that
“a cork is a cork is a cork”, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s true
that the traditional, natural cork bottle closure has largely stood the test of
time. After all, it’s been around since the 17th century when newfangled glass
bottles began replacing clay amphorae and wooden barrels.

Christy Canterbury MW
Christy is a journalist, speaker, critic and wine list consultant.
Previously, she directed wine buying for Smith & Wollensky,
Culinary Concepts by Jean-Georges Vongerichten and leading,
global retailers. Her article originally appeared on kj.com – the
website for Kendall-Jackson, America’s Favorite Chardonnay
– which covers everything from wine education to recipes to
budget friendly DIYs for the creative in all of us. Thanks for the
courtesy!
FROM TRADITIONAL CORK TO AN

ARRAY OF WINE BOTTLE CLOSURES

A wine bottle closure is the last blessing of wave crashing into traditional cork’s market.
a winemaker. That closure becomes the guar- Alas, this was not a case of new ideas com-
dian of the winemaker’s stewardship and so batting the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” menta-
much more. lity. The surge of global wine production (and
A bottle of wine is the work of an entire viti- requisite need for more cork closures) coupled
cultural year, plus however long the wine was with the lack of best practices and innovation
cared for and aged at the winery, not to menti- on the part of cork producing sector ended
on the many years of investment in the wine’s up pouring much heartache across the entire
vines prior to that particular annual cycle. Mo- wine industry, including right into consumers’
reover, a bottle of wine also represents a wi- glasses.
nery and the people behind that bottle from It all began with the seemingly unpronoun-
conceptualization, grape-growing and wine- ceable 2, 4, 6-Trichloroanisole (mercifully shor-
making to shipping and marketing. The choi- tened to the more widely used “TCA”), which
ce between the different types of wine bottle is a very - even miserably - stinky compound.
closures is critical. Even if you couldn’t pronounce it, you could
Cork is as an excellent wine bottle closure almost certainly smell it. (FYI - A small percen-
and is the preferred choice of most consumers. tage of humans have an anosmia to cork taint,
However, a ripple surfaced in natural cork’s po- meaning that they cannot smell it.)
pularity in the 1980s. This began a sea-change TCA is the compound responsible for the
in market sentiment that gathered into a tidal dreaded cork taint smell (which has nothing
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