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What the heck is going on here?I went to one of our PA State stores where they offer more wines than the usual allowed by our silly (stupid) PA laws and bought a bottle of Kim Crawford Marlborough sauvignon blanc from New Zealand. It was on sale from ~$19 to ~$13 and the sign next to it said that it scored 91 points somewhere (whatever that means). Plus, the Asylum's own AOK_Farmer recommended NZ sauv. blanc to me some weeks ago.
I was shocked when I got it home and went to cut the foil off to get out the cork. There was NO cork! This was a screw-top bottle - for $13!! What the...?
Then I tasted it - WOW! This was a nice - really nice wine: complex and fruity with a lot going on in the glass and the nose. All this in what was, I assume, supposed to be a cheap bottle.
Do any of you know this wine? I would appreciate your comments, please.
Worldman
Follow Ups:
Brom,My point was that I thought ALL wines in screw cap bottles were cheap. This was my first experience with non-junk screw enclosed wines.
I am learning, man.
These are definitely catching on for white wines. Calera Winery in Hollister, CA was bottling half of their viognier with screw cap closures to test their loyal customer reaction. I'm fine with the screw cap wines that are to be drunk young but for wines to be aged I prefer high quality cork. To me viognier is on the border between drink young and age for a couple of years. I really dislike the synthetic and compressed wood corks in any wine.
Newbilong,Yes, this is what I have since been told: that some NZ wine producers were "forcing" the acceptance of screw caps by just using them. I didn't know there was a shortage of good cork but have been told by a winemaker (AOK_Farmer) that screw cap was the IDEAL way to seal a wine bottle.
Brom,
I had never seen screw caps on wine over $2 a bottle (& thankfully haven't seen any of those $2 bottles for ~35 years). I "assumed" that a screw cap meant that the producer expected his wine to be cheap (a la Ripple) and didn't know of this little "uprising" down under.
I do not consider a $19 or $13 bottle of wine to be "cheap".
Worldman
There are a few NZ & Aus winemakers who are concerned that screwcaps inhibit the graceful ageing of wines because they don't allow slow and gradual oxidation of the wines. For wines that are generally drunk young, this should not be a problem. For premium wines that are aged under right conditions with quality corks, there may not be an advantage in screwcaps.There are a couple of wine critics who think that wines bottled young retain too much volatility under screwcap. i guess this is something that winemakers have to learn how to handle.
Also, there are reports of occasional problems with screwcap damage -- the cap is not sealed properly or is damaged during handling, so air gets in and the wine oxidises rapidly. i haven't come across this problem yet, so it's probably a LOT less common than corkage.
there's only so much good cork to go around. NZ winemakers kept getting sold the crap cork, so they've pushed for screwcaps.you can find even premium NZ and Australian wines in screwcaps these days -- $60 for a top Hawkes Bay red blend built to age for 5 to 10 years. Some top NZ winemakers do all their wines in screwcap -- it reduces corkage and allows for more even ageing/oxidation over the life of the wine.
so the Savvie you tried was exactly as the winemaker intended it with no infection from cork-born chemicals. it takes some of the risk out of wine-buying.
i haven't tried the Kim Crawford -- not a fan of his wines -- but other really good Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs are St Clair, Huia, Isabel, Spy Valley, Astrolabe, . . . etc. etc. i reckon they're all best drunk around 12 months after bottling, and on a hot afternoon around a barbecue. they've generally got high acidity and are pretty tart -- sometimes they have a tomato leaf pong to them (especially if they come from the Awatere Valley) or smell a bit like freshly cut grass or asparagus.
also, if you like Marlborough sauvignon blancs, you'd probably like Martinborough sauvignon blancs -- Palliser Estate exports to the States, and is usually a knockout. Hawkes Bay sauvignon blancs tend to be less acidic and more tropical fruit-flavoured.
this link has reviews of loads of NZ sauvignon blanc, and there's probably a discussion about screwcaps on the site somewhere:
"All this in what was, I assume, supposed to be a cheap bottle."Why would you assume that a $19 bottle of wine was supposed to be "a cheap bottle"? Did you think they mis-priced it?
Heck it wasn't even cheap on sale being > $10.
It couldn't have been the screw-top, because the time you found out it had a screw-top, you already knew that it wasn't "a cheap bottle".
I am not familiar with this wine, but I can tell you that you should no longer be surprised to find good wine in bottles using any variety of closure methods.
I have had top quality German wines sealed with crown caps - you know, like a beer bottle.
I think we will find '2nd New World' wines (from Oz, NZ and South Africa) leading the way in abandoning natural cork closures.
Screw caps or corks - which is best? It's true that up to 1:10 corks can be bad leading to corked wine; this is not particularly troublesome when you're drinking really cheap wine, say less than USD 7 per bottle. But when you have a bottle worth USD 100, you'd be pretty p***ed off. Screw caps are great for wines which should be consumed early eg most sauvignon blancs. However, it's different for wines needing many years in the bottle eg First growth red Bordeaux, Big Aussie reds (D'Arenberg Dead Arm Shiraz) or even some wines with finesse like pinot noirs. In the US, many world class wines are made esp in Russian River; some of the Pinot Noirs I've tasted have been top class; I started my wine tasting at the age of 7 at the Sunday Lunch table drinking Red Burgundy. At the end of the day, you have to remember that most wine is consumed within a few days of buying. Very few people keep substabtial amounts of wine for many years in a cellar.
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