I have to agree with Michael Pinkus on this issue: wines that are sealed with a synthetic cork really should carry a warning label or at least use a transparent capsule to avoid disappointment for the consumer. Fortunately, most of the wineries I favour have either stuck with traditional cork or have gone to steel closures, but I’ve had some unhappy experiences with Californian wine (and not always the cheap stuff) locked down under a blob of synthetic material.
The question I brought up in my post was why use a plastic cork in a knowingly ageable wine? First generation plastic, self-admitted by one of the leading synthetic manufacturer’s in the US, is for drink-now wines (at least within 3-4 years maximum); yet the Washington based Hedges is still claiming the possibility of 20 years. Now I am aware that better technology in synthetic is currently being studied and marketed to preserve bottles longer, but the fact still remains that a bottle closed in 2002 and opened in 2014 wasn’t given proper opportunity to age 5 years, let alone 20, based solely on choice of closure by the wine makers. But knowing what they know now about the older synthetics should not Hedges change their tune on their older bottles? Why stick by the 20 year number? It would be more appropriate to say: ‘you’d be very lucky for 20 years, or even 10, we recommend a maximum of 5 years.’
The Montreal-based writer, who took me to task, said that he did not approve of my anti-synthetic stance and said that I blamed the producer for a choice they made 12 years ago “as if they knew it would fail” over the long haul. He argued that taking into account the thinking of the time: that synthetic would do a better job and eliminate dreaded cork taint (TCA), I should give the producer a break. I’ll agree that maybe it is a little unfair of me to blame them for a decision they made 12 years ago; but what’s their excuse today? My demand NOW is to know what is sealing my bottles today.
A well-known and award winning winery here in Ontario used synthetic for their 2002-2005 vintage wines and consider it now to be “one of their worst mistakes ever”, once they realized their poor ageing ability. I recently dumped a number of their wines down the drain after discovering, and tasting, the wines I had in my cellar, sealed synthetically, and their marketing manager says he has done the very same with what he had considered, at the time of bottling, “some beautiful wines”. A popular, longtime wine writer and friend confided that upon noticing that this winery had moved to the synthetic closure said “my opinion of their wines was tainted”.
These are just two examples of industry insiders, from two sides of the industry (writing and marketing — each over 15 years in the business) knowingly making the decision against synthetic for long-term aging. So I know I’m not alone in my thinking; and where there is two in such close vicinity that means there are plenty more of us around the world.
