Do US wine bottles still use corks?!
Do US wine bottles still use corks?
..and if so, what brands still use them?
Answers:
Of couse they do.
Yes. almost any brand that is more than $5 a bottle.
Yes. Most brands...too many to list here.
Don't buy much wine
But all the gifts I buy (Californian) have corks.
I know that Corbett Canyon still does, and I think also Turning Leaf. Lots of smaller vintners are still using them.
I heard a wine connoiseur on radio a couple of weeks ago saying that, in ten years, almost all of the wines in the world will come with a screw-cap. Traditionalists may cringe, but there will be no more loss of a fine vintage due to corking.
Almost all wines use cork, but some of them use a plastic cork. Yellow tail uses plastic corks while,Ravenwood, and Estancia use wooden corks.
Many companies still use them, but the industry has realised that although traditional, cork is not the best thing to use as a bottle stopper. If the cork dries out, air reaches the wine, and that is a problem. Some companies have started using corks made of plastic, as they do not dry out. They are also much harder to remove from a bottle. Some companies have moved to a Stelvin (screw top). They are fighting against the stigma that if it has a screw top it must be cheap or bad wine. The industry is discovering that the stelvin is actually the ideal topper for a bottle. No chance of it breaking and forcing the consumer to shove the cork in the wine to drink it, no chance of it drying out, and if the consumer does not finish the bottle, just put the lid back on and save it for up to 3 days.
yes. by the millions, if not billions. most of the major wine producers still use corks. anything from kendall-jackson, gallo, mondavi, etc.