Cork Screw Not Required — Screw Top Wine
I wrote this in 2016 or 2017 during the two years I lived in New Zealand. Some details — prices, hours, what’s open — may have changed, but the experience and my love for this place haven’t.
It’s a little thing, but in the U.S. when I went shopping for wine I ignored all of the bottles with a screw top. My thoughts (rightly or wrongly) were that only the cheap wine had a screw top. Corks meant good wine and who doesn’t want good wine?
NZ has some of the best wines I’ve ever tried and magnificent wine country. The NZ wine trail is a “sign-posted 380km (240 mile) self-drive touring route that leads you off the beaten track. Travel through four of New Zealand’s most interesting and scenic regions, including three major wine growing areas that account for more than 70% of the New Zealand’s total annual wine production.” And if you make it down to Blenheim and want a break from drinking wine, the Makana Chocolate shop has the absolute best butter toffee crunch you will ever eat!
But corks in NZ are rare. Screw cap usage went from 1% to 95% of all New Zealand wines — including the high-end reds — and the science backs them up completely. In a decade of blind tastings around the world, there was not one instance where the wine with a cork outperformed the wine with a screw top. Not one. There are many reasons for loving screw tops — the best of which is that it means you don’t need to carry a corkscrew with you when traveling. Today’s cover picture, for instance, is of a kayaking trip we took a few months ago with no corkscrew in sight.
Another great benefit of screw tops is that you can easily reseal the bottle and carry it with you if there is still wine left over. That isn’t such a common problem in our household but maybe in yours?
