Randall Grahm's Bonny Doon winery in Santa Cruz, California has a long record of injecting some fun into the world of wine. Here's how they announce their current scheme to "exchange corkscrews for recycling into touching, whimsical, architecturally wondrous and symbolically rich though yet-to-be-designed sculpture". It was also, to my knowledge, the first American winery to go hook, line and sinker into screwcap. See also my account of how Grahm buried the cork in New York in 2002.
Hey, Hey TCA, How many wines did you taint today?
Bonny Doon Vineyard announces the launch of the 04 Great American Corkscrew Recall, an initiative whereby consumers can exchange their poor, tired, ravaged, rusty, tainted,useless corkscrews yearning to spin free, for a very cool and tasteful T-shirt. The exchange highlights Bonny Doon's adoption of Stelvin(tm) screwcap closures in lieu of corks for the entirety of their still wine portfolio.
Beginning on 01 jun and running through the summer, participating retailers will display myriad propaganda which extol the virtues of screwcaps by elucidating the Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Exchange Your Corkscrew, to wit:
1. We will send you an unspeakably cool T-shirt.
2. Corkscrews are still considered in some areas as being primitive,
phallocentric symbols of male aggression.
3. The still thoroughly dead Thierry Bouchon [M. Le Cork] should be
permitted to rest in peace.
4. In do doing, your are eloquently stating that with the wines
your personally serve, it just taint so.
5. Your drawers will seem cleaner, neater and safer.
6. The airlines will confiscate them anyway.
7. You could easily put out an eye.
8. Requiring a corkscrew to open a fine bottle of wine is now as
compulsory as needing a crank to start one's engine.
9. The glut of corkscrews currently offered on eBay has rendered
yours virtually worthless.
10. Playing Russian roulette is appropriate in old Akim Tamiroff films,
not when opening premium wine bottles.
In an important election year, it is hard to conceive how one is not
getting totally rogered. While Bonny Doon can do relatively little to
protect its customers from the depredations of politicians, we can do
our bit to protect Doonophiles from the ravages of TCA, the noxious
organic compound implicated in cork taint. As a monument to the
odiferous past of M. Thierry Bouchon [aka "The Cork"], Bonny Doon plans
to relieve the country of its corkscrew surplus and convert the quaint
antiquities into a sculpture of Rhodean proportions to be erected in
Santa Cruz.
Bonny Doon has chosen to adopt the Stelvin(tm) closure to avoid the
alarmingly high incidence of taint associated with the use of natural
bark corks. Cork taint manifests itself in extreme cases as a
pronounced musty or moldy scent. Perhaps more insidious are mild cases
in which the consumer has no idea the wine is flawed, but perceives far
less fruit and expressiveness in a wine than expected. In these cases
the consumer likely will not blame the cork for its apparent failure,
but will conclude that they do not like the wine in question.
Photos of the point of sale materials supporting the promotion can be
viewed by contacting Jenny Balas at +1 [831] 425-3625 x 123. Further
information regarding screwcaps can be found at www.deathofthecork.com
.
More information about Bonny Doon Vineyard can be found at
www.bonnydoonvineyard.com.