“Barossa Valley winery Rusden Wines has announced it is giving up on screwcap closures and will now bottle its entire product range under cork.

Canute said Rusden had experienced a range of problems with its wine under screwcap and after a five year trial of screwcap “it has become clear that cork is best for our wines”.

“Our wines are handmade and bottled without fining or filtration. Under a screwcap I have noticed the wines ‘sweat’, producing overly dominant reductive characters, a problem we have never had under cork,” he said.

Canute added that Australian sommeliers had confirmed the reductive, ‘sweaty’ characters he was experiencing in the winery with the wine under screwcap. Trade customers were also experiencing high incidence of bottle variation.

“From a technical point of view, from a sustainability point of view, from a consumer point of view and from an aspirational, premium factor point of view, cork is the best companion to wine,” he said.

“We believe wineries and major retailers are returning to cork because of consumer preference, vast improvements in the quality of cork, the emerging limitations of alternative closures and a growing awareness of cork’s environmental advantages,” said Amorim‘s director of marketing and communication Carlos de Jesus.”

(Harpers Wine & Spirit Trade Reviwe)