Gregor Christie of ProCork was in town, so I managed to squeeze in a quick beer with him before last night's wine dinner. We talked closures, and more specifically about mercaptans in wine. Gregor is collecting pairs of wines sealed with screwcaps and natural cork to send off to ETS to analyse sulfides. This should show whether 'reduction' in wine sealed with tin-lined screwcaps is a real-world problem or not.

While we are on the subject of closures, two recent surveys have looked at the attitude of winemakers and trade figures to closures. I don't know whether the results are particularly important - the impression I give is that they are polling semi-ignorance in many cases. Frankly, when I speak to winemakers, I'm often amazed at how few questions they ask people trying to sell them closures.

Skalli and Rein global wine closure survey

Wine business monthly closure survey