A recent study shows that 2.2 percent of wine bottles sealed with screw caps are affected by a process called “reduction,” which releases a rotten egg “aroma” when the cap is unsealed.
That’s still a much better record than that of traditional corks, which fail at a rate of 4.4 percent. But since screw caps were supposed to eliminate tainted wines, I decided to ask one of my winemaker friends about it.
“I’ve heard about that,” he said, “but, frankly, I think it’s just propaganda that cork makers are happy to spread. In my experience, how a closure is applied is just as important as what it’s made of. Most tainted bottles are at least partly the fault of the person or machine that’s doing the bottling.”
My friend remains a strong supporter of screw caps, but admits that we’ve yet to develop the perfect, fool-proof closure for wine bottles.
