The Optimist

Well this debate is now starting to hot right up. The Stelvin Cap has been around for decades with its use in fortified wines back in the 1960's and 1970's. It then disappeared off the scene for about 30 years.

It is now back with a vengence.

We are seeing wines, both red and white appear with Stelvin Caps and this is a horriffic thought to the wine purists, but a great relief to the wine purchasers that consume their wine within 2 hours of purchase.

There are many pros and cons for both sides.

I am personally conducting a trial of two bottles containing exactly the same wine - one under Stelvin and one under Cork. I have cellared these wines for about 5 years now and I will do a thorough taste test over the next two years to determine where I feel the wine has taken itself in each bottle.

My thoughts prior to the realisation of my testing are that Stelvin is fine for wines that you will consume quickly - meaning no longer than 2 years in the cellar and that the top shelf wines like Penfolds Grange etc... should always stay under Cork.

I have nothing factual to back up this belief, just a traditionalist viewpoint that is all. I will be very interested to conduct my test and I have been very patient in doing so and this will give me a very good feel about the Stelvin vs Cork debate.

What are your thoughts on Cork vs Stelvin and what is your preference and why?

stephenkentucky

I have been thinking about the best closure to use for some time now but have finally given in and bought a new technomax stelvin applicator. the reasons are myriad for this decision. But what pushed me over the edge was a discussion with one of Australia's premium wine writers who had had the opportunity to comparatively taste both cork and ROTE capped wines fom a number of vintages both here and overseas, he stated that stelvin was superior in almost all instances, he was especially critical of plastic cork and Zork for plastic taint and in the case of Zork leakage. Apart from qualitative issues, I will miss the experience of un-corking a bottle as I believe it is part of the romance of wine, but believe that time will reveal the value of stelvin as we have less loss of our valuable wine investments to spoilage and taint.
well thats my 2 cents worth!

TalkingWines

No doubt the trend is moving away from cork due to leakage problems.

Just take the time to ask any modern day wine maker.