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CLOSURES

The Life Stylings of Charles Springfield many different types of wine bottle closures.)
New York Screw caps, Zork closures and sparkling wine
“mushroom top corks” win for immediate satis-
faction: no corkscrew is required for extracting
the closure. For all other wine bottle closures,
we need a tool to open the wine bottle. We
also need to know how to use that tool.
When we spare some of a bottle for another
time, it isn’t always easy getting the closure
back into the bottle. Yes, screw caps, VinoSe-
al/Vino-lok and Zork tops fit easily back onto
a bottle, but other cork-like closures aren’t al-
ways as cooperative. Technical and synthetic
corks can be a real challenge to jimmy back
into the bottle. This happens because all corks
are actually much larger than the wine bottle
opening. On a bottling line, corks are firmly
compressed then inserted into their bottles
before expanding against the walls of their
to do with bits of crumbled cork that someti- new glass homes. Once removed, the corks
mes fall into our wine glasses). Sometimes it’s stretch out again – kind-of like we do when
prominent and sometimes it is subtle, but it is getting off a long flight! Natural corks are the
an odor that prompts knowing noses to deem most malleable, and it is usually easiest to put
wines “corked”. the non-wine end of a natural cork back into
It took two decades for natural cork closu- the bottle as it re-expands more slowly.
re producers to get their acts together, after (Tip: don’t bother re-inserting the original
initially ignoring the problem. Natural cork wine bottle closure into any bottle. Instead,
production has never been better, even if it use a Vacu Vin stopper and pump to seal it up
still isn’t perfect. That’s great news. The even until you are ready to sip from the same bottle
more dynamic news is that during the time of within the next few days!)
natural cork’s evolution, winemakers and con-
sumers have been experimenting with other Wine Aromas
closures. We can be choosy these days, even Second, the various wine closure types also
while we are generally more open-minded. affect the aromatic properties of wines, even
All these years down the road, there are many when they are meant to be as neutral as possi-
ways other than aromas in which wine corks ble. One of the original reasons to move away
and wine cork substitutes can affect our wine from natural cork-closed wines was to elimina-
drinking experiences. te smelly cork taint. However, technical corks
are glued together and can sometimes ema-
TWO WAYS DIFFERENT WINE nate a chemical tone to those highly sensitive
CLOSURES AFFECT OUR WINE to the smell. (I’m not one of them.) Synthetic
DRINKING EXPERIENCES corks are made of petroleum-based elements
Opening and Closing Wine Bottles for the most part and can do the same. This

First, different wine closures affect how off-gassing of technical and synthetic corks
easily we can get to the wine we’d like to drink. is most noticeable on lighter whites and reds.
(See below for an overview on some of the Finally, tight alternative seals like wine bottle
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