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Corks influence the color, aroma and flavor of any liquid they touch. Mike shows you how this affects your wine as he makes a bid for screw caps.
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Mike Supple: I'm Mike Supple and you're watching "Screw It" on SuppleWine TV. Today's topic is about white wine and corks.

There's a lot of debate in the wine industry as to what the best type of closure is for a bottle of wine - whether it's the traditional use of cork, a screw cap, some kind of synthetic cork or a glass stopper. There are a whole slew of ideas out there and people are trying new ones every day. There are a lot of good reasons for and against pretty much every one of those ideas.

Today I'm making the argument that, specifically for white wines, you're going to want to stay away from cork. A lot of people make this argument, and most of the time when people do it, they're talking about cork because it's a natural product that can cause problems with your bottle of wine. Because it's natural it can have holes - little ones that you can't see - that can allow air to get in to the wine, spoiling it. Wine and air are not friends.

Another thing that corks are known for doing: they can have a compound on there that reacts with the wine, it's called TCA. Basically, it makes your wine smell and taste a lot like wet cardboard. That's kind of gross. It's also what people are talking about when they say their wine is "corked." They're referring to this TCA, and that does actually come from the cork.

So these are problems that generally affect one in ten bottles of wine, which may not sound like a lot to you until you think about it. If one in ten bottles of wine that you're drinking at home you can't finish because it tastes bad - it's ruined, it's corked, it's been oxidized and spoiled - that adds up. It's a lot of money. It's a problem for you as a consumer and it's a problem for the wineries, which is why this debate is raging; always trying to find something new.

But I'm not making that argument. I'm making the argument today that corks are bad for white wine and for a reason that affects 100% of wines that they touch. To illustrate my point: seven days ago I took two glasses of water. In one glass I put a cork. I covered them both with Saran wrap so nothing could get out and nothing could get in, affecting these glasses. And I'm going to show you today what that cork did to this water.

Let's take the Saran wrap off here, bust in to these and let's go ahead and take a closer look at both glasses.

Just starting at the appearance (I'll go ahead and take the cork out), it's pretty obvious against the white paper here that the cork had a drastic effect on the color of the water. The one that had the cork in it actually looks almost like a white wine; it has so much color that leeched out of that cork. Step one: affected the color.

Next, take a smell of each glass. We'll start with the plain water to get a base. It doesn't really smell like anything, which I suppose is a good thing for my water. Smells like nothing at all, really.

Next, glass that had the cork in it: let's see if this has any aromas. That has a lot of smell to it. It doesn't smell like a cork, but it does have a lot of smell that leeched out. It smells a little bit earthy, a little bit nutty too, and it smells a little bit sweet. That's just water and cork. Clearly affected the aromas.

The third thing: go ahead and take a taste to see if it did anything there. Water tastes like water; that's a good sign. [Tastes second glass.] So that's fairly mild, but there's a distinct flavor difference between the plain water and the glass with the cork. I'll try that again, this is the glass with the cork. It's mild, but it's there. It's a lot like the aromas. It tastes a little bit nutty and has almost a hint of a sweet earthy quality to it. It doesn't taste like water - that's the important part. It means that the cork affected the flavor.

So what does all this mean? Why does it matter? When it comes to tasting and enjoying wine, there are three main things that people look at when evaluating a wine: 1) what does the wine look like; 2) what does the wine smell like; and 3) what does the wine taste like.

I just showed you right here that having a cork touching that liquid affected all three of those things. And that was just over seven days. Imagine what happens if you have your bottle of wine with a cork in it touching for several weeks or several months. And even if you drink the wine when it's just released, it could have been in the winery touching that cork for weeks. If it's an import it could have been on the water transporting for weeks, and at your retailer for a couple of weeks before you finally get that into your glass. So obviously your wine has been touching that cork for a long period of time.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing for all wines. Red wines and some heavier-bodied Chardonnays and things are all about the layers of flavors, the layers of aromas. None of those aromas and flavors were really bad, so they could add to the complexity of a wine. But if I'm drinking a crisp, aromatic white wine like a Sauvignon Blanc, I want to smell and taste grapefruit. I want to smell and taste lemongrass. I don't want to smell and taste the cork. If I'm tasting Riesling, I want it to be all about the white flowers, the honeysuckle, maybe some nectarine in there and some apricot. If I'm tasting Albarino, I want the citrus notes and the white peach. I just want to taste that wine. I want to taste what the wine maker had in store for me.

So when it comes to my fresh aromatic white wines, I'm going to stay away from the cork and I'm probably going to go with a screw cap every time - and I think you should too. It's important to remember that big wineries, good wineries, are using screw caps because they are recognizing this too. Particularly coming out of Australia and New Zealand. There are expensive wines, there are good quality wines and there are inexpensive and good quality wines. Don't be afraid. Stay away from the cork, go screw cap, and really enjoy your wine.