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“Today’s young wine consumer is hip experimental brand conscious and at the leading edge of a population bulge that will soon determine the direction of the American table” Fredrikson continues. “Who better than Grahm and his excellent but irreverent Ca’ del Solo wines to push the limits of closure tradition?”
Eliminating cork taint
Among other approaches—including the use of synthetic cork—many wineries are looking for closures that will minimize or reduce problems of cork taint. This can be characterized as off-odor or off-flavor that results from oxidation. There are wide-ranging estimates of how pervasive cork taint is from 2% to 6% of all cork-sealed wines.
Grahm estimates that as much as 10% of wines with cork closures may be tainted to one degree or another. It was just this issue that caused Pechiney to develop an organoleptically inert closure that would permit wine to age gracefully. Bonny Doon in fact uses Stelvin closures with either one of two special liners that contain polyvinylidene chloride barrier layers.
“We use the one gas-barrier liner for all wines that are either meant to be consumed short-term or meant to age for years” Locke points out. “For red wines meant to be consumed in the mid-term which tend to be reductive like barbera and zinfandel we use a different liner one that allows a microscopic level of oxygen exchange. These represent just about 10 percent to 15 percent of our production.”
Underscoring the winery’s commitment to the closure Bonny Doon added a new closure applicator from Italy that represented a $100 investment.
Glass bottle supply
Not long after the Big House wines reached the market in 2002 with the screw cap Bonny Doon realized the conversion had been successful. “That’s when we wanted to move on to our other wines” Locke says. “Unfortunately the real limiting factor was the availability of artful bottles to use with the Stelvin closure. That’s the main reason it’s taken us so long to reach a 98% conversion.”
In some cases the winery worked with glassmakers to have threaded bottles produced specifically for them. However when it involves having new molds made Locke says the project to get new bottles can take the better part of a year. “To get the glass industry to respond to the demand for bottles with this finish it took a couple of wineries ourselves included to have bottles made at our own expense” Locke says.
“Now” he adds “we’re working with some of the very large manufacturers. At the same time we’re also working with a small manufacturer in Italy that makes some of our specialty bottles.”
Along the way Locke explains that the winery has done a lot of promotional work behind the change and that continues to be ongoing.
“At this point we think most people have accepted the screw caps and people have now moved on to other issues” Locke says. “At retail our sales have gone so well that our problem is supplying enough wine. But there probably always will be some percentage of the market that will be resistant to cork alternatives maybe five to ten percent. But it certainly hasn’t affected our sales.”
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