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Wine Review: Stopping method solves wine bottle closure issues

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For hundreds of years, stoppers made from cork have been the closure of choice for wine bottles. A cork, even under the best of conditions, has a life span of about 30 years, and because of that, old wines require recorking every 30 years or so. Natural cork is also subject to a multitude of mold and mildew problems that can and often do spoil the wine.

Recently, synthetic closures have entered the marketplace. Synthetic closures have none of the problems that occur with natural cork, but they have introduced a whole new series of problems of their own. To eliminate the most obvious question about these closures, they do not add any chemicals or other off-flavors or aromas to wines.

Another question is the fallacy that the cork must allow the wine to breathe in order for the wine to age properly. On most modern bottling lines, the bottle is first purged with nitrogen and then filled, after which the closure is inserted, thus reducing the possibilities of airborne contamination.

One thing comes to the forefront: Without question, an excellent closure for a bottle of wine is a metal screw-top. Will someone please throw some water on the wine geek who just fainted at that last statement? The screw-top will seal a wine bottle best, result in less spoilage and will outlast cork stoppers by a factor of 10 to one. The problem is that there can be nothing less glamorous or more mundane.

Now, from Australia, comes the newest challenger for title of “king of the hill” of wine bottle closures, the Zork. This could be, at least for the present, the answer to all of the problems with wine bottle closures. The Zork is a plastic stopper that fits over the top of the bottle and locks into place to effectively seal the bottle. It also offers one more treat - it can safely reseal a bottle so the wine can be enjoyed again at a later date.

The next obvious question that comes up is the inevitable, “How long will it keep the wine fresh?” According to David Hamlin of Crosby & Baker, one of the country’s largest distributors of winemaking supplies to commercial and home winemakers, the wines he tested that were sealed with a Zork were as fresh after several months as they were when they were first opened.

The Zork is simplicity personified. The closure is removed by pulling a tab at the bottom of the stopper, unwinding it three times and then just pulling it off. To reseal, one simply inserts the Zork into the bottle and pushes a button on the top, which locks the Zork and seals the bottle. This closure is so good that it can even be used to reseal sparkling wines without any fear of it popping out or losing gas.

I believe that the Zork will remain mainly within the field of affordable wines. Fine wines will probably stay with the natural cork and foil covering capsule purely for aesthetics and tradition. For the affordable wines, the Zork should begin to show up with increasing frequency.

The cost of a Zork is slightly above that of the average natural cork or synthetic closures - with the exception of the premium natural corks, which are about double the price of a Zork. The Zork, however, is much more expensive than the crown caps used on beer bottles and carbonated beverages, so its appearance in that category is highly doubtful.

Right now, the Zork can be found on wine bottles such as Red Leight, Deerfield Ranch, Plungerhead and many of the wines presently coming from Australia and New Zealand. It also is being evaluated by several California premium wineries.

Nixa resident Bennet Bodenstein is a wine columnist and helps manage ArticlesOnWine.com with his wife, Sheila. He can be reached at frojhe@suddenlink.net.[[In-content Ad]]

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