One of the subjects most heatedly discussed on the British Circle of Wine Writers' internet forum is stoppers. A colleague of mine, Peter Forrestal, editor of Australian Gourmet Traveller's Wine magazine, has given me permission to quote his reply to the accusation that 'the Australian wine industry has invested so rashly and so heavily in alternative closures'.
'Two groups tested the waters for Stelvin [the main brand of screwcap in Australia] closures. Firstly Orlando released 500 cases of a couple of John Vickery's Richmond Grove Rieslings [John Vickery is the Oz king of Riesling; he was responsible for all those marvellous Leo Buring bottlings from the 1970s on] under Stelvin caps to gauge the public's response. This proved to be very positive.
Then 13 Clare [Valley] producers took the plunge. This is their comment on how their experiment went.
"The introduction of Stelvin by a group of Clare Valley producers in 2000 has been extraordinarily successful, regardless of how its success is measured. Firstly, all producers who introduced Stelvin in 2000 have maintained, or increased their product under Stelvin in 2001, with many examples of Stelvin outselling the same product under cork. Secondly, the original 13 have been joined by a further 6 producers in the Clare Valley and more than 50 premium wine producers from other regions of Australia and New Zealand."
Although the move was bold, I don't believe that it was rash.
Orlando's Chief Winemaker, Phil Laffer, is currently responding to a request from Tesco to put substantial quantities of their wines in Stelvin. He is less confident than Tesco that Stelvin will work in the UK and so is only prepared to send experimental volumes of wine at this stage.
Ater the initial plunge, all of the expansion into Stelvin in Australia has been driven by consumer demand.
Here's an extract from the latest newsletter from Dr John Wilson of the Wilson Vineyard (wilsonvineyard.com.au) a 4000 case operation in the Polish Hill River sub-region of Clare:
More on Stelvin Closures
In the Autumn of 2000, we joined with a number of other Clare Valley wine producers in venturing into the use of Stelvin screwcaps for the Riesling of that year, and considered ourselves bold in committing a third of the production to Stelvin caps. At the time the universal cry from our agents was that there was a lot of resistance to Stelvin caps within the wine trade.
When that 2000 vintage was released, there was an immediate clamour for the Stelvin stock, which left us only with the cork closures and finding ourselves having to apologise for having Riesling with corks.
Even when the 2001 vintage was still bubbling in the tank, we put in our order for the screw thread bottles and caps sufficient to do the whole vintage of Riesling.
For the first time since 1994, we found ourselves releasing the new (2001) Riesling , and still having a few (a very few) of the previous vintage "on the floor". The universal cry from our Australian agents was that they could have sold a lot more of riesling, if only it had been in Stelvin caps.
What a remarkable turn-around in consumer sentiment within 12 months.
Maybe that's the clue, consumer opinion is not always/doesn't have to be static.'
Peter also adds
'Henschke for a little while has been using Stelvin for all its museum stock. I've heard that most of the big companies are also doing this. Intend following up and confirming that.
Apparently, some large companies have been sealing show samples with Stelvin and this has caused a deal of fuss as some of the judges have said that it's not fair to have show stock in Stelvin if that is not what the public will get. I'm hoping to find out more on that too.'
Interesting that the UK's leading supermarket Tesco is so keen on screwcaps. They certainly don't do anything they believe their customers might disapprove of. Watch that shelf.