[Dan Ellis on Wine]Capped wine you say? Screw that

When you spend as much time as I do reading about wine -- especially wine in Korea -- you get to read some interesting viewpoints. Once you have filtered your way through the seemingly endless news reports on the success of the Drop of God Manga -- which is, if we are to believe the news reports, single handedly responsible for the growth in wine consumption here -- there are some interesting and controversial ideas floating about.

I was reading a reasonably well-known expat forum recently and came across a very succinct review of an Itaewon restaurant. The food was not mentioned, nor was it even consumed, as the wine service was so terrible, the critic left before eating.

What was the heinous crime committed by this restaurant? Serving a 50,000 won ($42) wine that had a screw cap. The author of this review did add that he was not a wine expert, but certainly knows a bad wine when he sees one, and this particular bottle was atrocious.

This is perhaps not an unsurprising reaction. Until recently all wines would have come under cork and anything that did not come in a bottle following the classic Bordelaise style would be outright shunned. Times are changing and the problem of cork taint -- the cause of the telltale musty smell that destroys a wine`s fruit and character -- has led the wine industry to adapt.

Screw caps are one of the solutions. And in many instances, they work quite well.

The particularly disastrous bottle in question was an Australian Sauvignon Blanc. Sauvignon Blanc is a grape that does not generally benefit from age. Indeed, it can develop some rather unpleasant characteristics and so absolute freshness of the fruit is key. A screw cap is certainly going to offer more protection from the elements than cork and with no chance of taint it is almost certainly the better choice for a reasonably cheap new world Sauvignon Blanc.

New Zealand is currently the country for producing Sauvignon Blanc from the budget to the pricey and around 90 percent of all New Zealand wines are screw caps. That includes red wine.

There is doubt as to how screw-cap wines will age and I suspect that the world`s great wines, particularly those from the old world will continue happily with cork. I believe this is the right decision, opening a great bottle of Claret with a screw cap would surely destroy some of the romance and one must endeavor to keep wine a romantic pasttime.

There are also rumblings from environmentalists. Screw caps are not biodegradable like cork, but cork forests are considered a vital lifeline for wildlife and protection against desertification.

For the average wine consumer in Korea, I would say embrace the screw cap. It is a guarantee against one of the most common faults in wine and even more importantly lets you get at the wine far more quickly, when going to a party there is no need to worry about a corkscrew and it removes the embarrassment of having a cork break on you.

Taking a corked wine back to the store in Korea is no easy task with limited Korean skills so why not remove the need altogether.

Dan can be reached through his website at wine-in-korea.blogspot.com -- Ed.

Dan Ellis on Wine