Florent Baumard@the 2006 Salon des Vins de Loire with his screwcapped Clos du Papillon, Savennières It's now well over three years since Florent Baumard became the first top quality Loire producer to opt to bottle his wines in screwcap. While the move to screwcaps in the Loire continues to be fairly slow, less slow amongst the négociants, agreed, but slow with many individual producers, it has now made surprising progress in Portugal – the heartland of the world's cork industry. This morning I was surprised to see a half bottle of Mateus Rosé sealed with a screwcap. Admittedly full sized bottles on sale were still closed with a cork but presumably these will move in time to screwcap too.
If Sogrape now feel comfortable to use screwcaps on Mateus in Portugal, when will producers in Sancerre, Pouilly and, especially, Muscadet follow suit? After all it is now nearly 10 years since the Clare Valley Riesling producers set off the screwcap revolution in 2000.
5 comments:
Jim,
We persuaded our Sancerre grower, Serge Laporte in Chavignol, to move to screw-caps for the 2007 vintage and it has been a great success. Pierre-Yves Sauvion has also bottled our "Catch of the Day" Muscadet in screw caps since last year...all the importer has to do is ask, I reckon!
Give them a try!
Chris Piper
It continues to amaze me that wines intended to be drunk with in the first couple of years of release aren't all either screw capped or tetra/box packed. Cork offers no benefits for inexpensive wine. I have spoken. :)
Chris. Thanks. I knew Pierre-Yves was a supporter of screwcaps. I hadn't realised that Serge Laporte is using screwcaps – presumably this is for part of his production or is it for everything. Bourgeois now put Petit Bourgeois in screwcap.
Jack. I entirely agree with you.
Jim, Serge and his son, Guillaume, put our needs under Stelvin for the 2007 vintage and kept a bit back for some 'vente directe' sales. Having had such a positive result from his French customers, he has decided to only bottle a small amount under cork for the 2008 vintage. Another grower of ours who is using screwcaps for her Sauvignon & Gamay de Touraine is Anne-Sophie Meurey-Penet at Château de la Presle at Oisly. More and more of our growers are open to change in the Stelvin direction, which is very encouraging. Chris
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