Wine bottles: Cork or screw cap?

Natural cork
Natural cork is mainly obtained from the bark of the cork oak tree from countries in the Mediterranean region. The cork bark is peeled every eight to ten years - the first time when the trees have reached an age of around 25 years. However, the first peeling is not yet used for cork production. So the production is long and expensive.
Sometimes cork taint can occur. The main reason for this is contamination of the cork with TCA (trichloroanisole), which is produced from a mold.

Screw cap
In the past, only very simple wines were bottled with screw caps. In the meantime, however, many noble wines are also equipped with a screw cap. This applies not only to great wines from overseas, but also increasingly to fine red wines from Germany, Spain and Italy. Most winemakers in Europe and especially in France, however, have remained faithful to the classic closure type of natural cork for fine red wines, since the wine supposedly needs a natural cork to breathe.

Plastic cork
This type of closure is often used for simple red wines as well as for rosé and white wines. Due to low manufacturing costs, plastic corks have become quite popular among many winemakers. Experience has shown that long wine storage is not practical with plastic corks, as the plastic will fatigue over time.

Many wine lovers have become fans of the screw cap in recent years. Although the ceremony of pulling the cork and the sound of the popping cork are missing here, possible cork tastes are also eliminated.