Buying a bottle of wine…. part 4: Cork or aluminum cap – the choice is yours… maybe

One of the most negative shocking events about wine happened when I was in a restaurant. I can’t clearly remember when and where it was, but I seriously remember the moment when the waitress brought the wine bottle for the tasting… 

I don’t know what kind of impression you have when you connect wine and restaurants, but I have – maybe – a traditional impression. For me wine and restaurant are associated with good food, nice company, relaxed atmosphere and having a nice conversation: The waitress is coming with the bottle of choice. Presenting again your choice and then turning in the corkscrew. A little tension and movement of muscles and “plop”! Et voilà! The cork is out and presented towards me before I will have a zip to taste it. Actually that is the way I imagine it, however reality has thought me always a slight divergence of my imagination. Back in my memories I didn’t heard the familiar ‘plop’-sound of a cork which was torn out of the bottleneck. Back then I heard a metallic shattering when the waitress twisted the aluminum cap. Et boum…..Merci beaucoup! Great experience, honestly.

But why was I so shocked? I think particular because I wasn’t expecting it. But there is also another reason why I was so shocked, because for me a wine bottle has a cork and not an aluminum cap. I think I have to tell you more about the ‘cork’ thing before we can proceed further. I see it as an important part of ‘Buying of bottle of wine’ chapter, also it belongs later to another chapter, and I need to tell you more…

A cork tree (Quercus suber)
Picture source:
www.wikipedia.org

So what is actually a cork? What is so special about it? Well a cork is a natural product and is a part of bark (skin and protection layer) of a cork tree. It is harvest (yes harvest!) every 7-9 years by cutting it off from a tree. This long period before harvesting again is one of the reasons why cork is a little bit expensive. But it is worth the price from my point of view. The structure of the cork or better the attribute of the cork is that it is hydrophobic (means water can’t bind to it) and therefore won’t react with the wine when both are exposed to each other. Why is that so important?…uff…et ben.. now I have to give you some more details. If you have wine and you want to store it, so that it can develop itself and maybe become better, you will need a room where nothing is disturbing the development (by means reacting with it). A glass bottle is this room. Glass is a material which is not reacting with the wine, it is not exchanging anything. Glass is glass – and it is hydrophobic in this way. So now to close this room we need something as well which won’t react with the wine: here comes the cork into play. Cork is elastic to be put into a bottleneck and completely seal it without any kind of glue or whatever. Plus it’s a natural product, so something which occurs in nature and is not artificially made. Perfect. 

You might ask yourself know why not an aluminum cap wouldn’t not be suitable. Because if I have a close look on the inside of it, I might see that some of them are coated with a plastic surface. And plastic is hydrophobic also and I won’t get any kind of metallic taste in the wine.

You got a point and also but not a point. Yeah point for it is hydrophobic and that the plastic coat will protect the wine from getting a metallic taste. However because of chemical and personal reasons I don’t wanna have plastic in contact with wine. I am sorry to not to explain this into more deeply at the moment. Anyway please no plastic stuff in wine, at least the one which is stored over a long period of time.

Next to aluminum caps without plastic and only metal. These ones I must say I have more often seen that ones with plastic. I don’t know why but my educational guess would be that they are less expensive. So now is metal in contact with the wine, could that somehow influence the taste of the wine? Uff…very very good question. My answer: it could happen. But so far I have only seen bottle stored upright with these caps. So the wine is at most of the time not in contact with the metal. You should still consider that if you want to store a bottle of wine longer it should lay – so no metals for wine, which you can store over a long time. Indeed I haven’t seen any kind of these bottles for storage with these caps. I hope this will remain; otherwise I have to find something else that I can store in my wine cellar. 

From left to right: A natural 'traditional' cork;
A pressed cork; An aluminum cap

Someone might now mention about the fact that there are not only aluminum caps on wine bottles but that there are also plastic corks. Yeah that is true and still I don’t like to see them as well in a bottle. However I can accept them as long as they are only used for wine which is not made for long storage, by means to be early consumed. - A nice part of these plastic corks is, that they make the ‘plop’ sounds. - Btw in the last years I have seen a change from the traditional natural cork towards the plastic corks or aluminum caps. This might be due to the fact that currently people prefer to drink wine earlier and not to keep it for such a long time in a celler. So we will definitely face these plastic corks or aluminum caps in the future more and more. 

Yeah well it can be helped and I think that the cork issue is a matter for people who are very much into wine, but nevertheless I had the feeling to explain this matter to you. Cause even tho you might think at the moment it is not important for you or might play a role. It might play again a role when you but a bottle of wine for friend who is into wine. However I would never be mad or angry at a friend who would bring a bottle of wine with an aluminum cap along, because for me the anticipation of buying a gift is more important. Then again I would take it in a mean way if I would get it from a French person…maybe because I expect something different from them.  

So what should you actually do when you are again confronted with the choice of buying a bottle of wine? Well when it comes to white wine, you most probably will face more often the aluminum cap nowadays. That is, because white wines are generally not used for storage. So you probably will find more often a cork for red wines. But here comes the trick: How to differ between a bottle that has a natural cork or a plastic one? Honestly you don’t stand a chance to figure that out before you open the bottle. Sorry that’s the way it is. At least the only hope you might have for having a natural cork is when you are going for wine from wine mansions which have a long tradition and tend to produce great and excellent wine. For them it would be compromising their name and reputation if they would go for the plastic things. 

But after all this information back to the restaurant situation: Why did I want to have cork instead of an aluminum cap? Well some of the reason I just told you before, but when you normally have a natural cork people then to smell on the cork. That is to figure some things out. I think you might see that this post might get a little bit longer that the other ones before, so I will make it shorter from here on. The smelling of the cork gives you some infos about the wine. You can smell if there was something wrong with the cork or if the wine is not going to be good. Also you can see if something broke of the cork and might be now in the wine (no worries that is not dangerous or affecting the wine in any kind of way). Also a nice thing about the cork is that people like to play with it, especially kids. So what is better to play with your fingers when you are nervous or if you want to talk about something else (why not talking about wine then?). An aluminum cap or a cork? Well the choice is yours…  And now I start to realize why I was so shocked about the aluminum cap back in my memories and upset about this. I guess I was hoping for something to play with….

I hope this post wasn’t too long or too difficult to read, still somehow I have the slight feeling it was. So please bear with me, I will try to make easier to read in the future!

Nevertheless I am happy to congratulate you for passing the first chapter of our ‘tour du vin’! You know have achieved some small basics in (red) wine that is, if you have read all the posts so far. Now that know some basics about wine and what you should consider it is time to move on to another chapter: ‘Wine accessories’. We definitely will come back from time to time to a new part of ‘Buying a bottle of wine’ and expand your knowledge about it. But so far I don’t wanna go much more into detail about the wine buying. Why? My reason is simple: too much information in the beginning can ruin the interest and also make it problematic to digest this information. Since I learned about wine by my dad, he never gave me too much information. He just always mentioned something once at a time and whenever I had questions, he always talked about different things which are connected to wine (carafe, the cork, the cellar and so on). So I had time to learn and understand things by trying and tasting wine – I hope it won’t take so much time for you like me when reading this blog. I am working on my wine knowledge and training my taste buds at least for 8-10 years - . Therefore please go ahead and bear in mind that you will only achieving knowledge and wisdom by going out and tasting some wine. At a bar, at a friend’s place or whenever or wherever it might happen. 

Therefore à bientôt mes amis! 

PS: I just opened up a bottle with a natural (pressed) cork. By means these natural corks are made of cork rest and then put together by pressure and heat. One more to be mentioned.