Screwcaps:
The Future?
(September 12, 2009)
Adam Lee of
Siduri is not
only a gifted winemaker, but a relentless innovator. He's also
amazingly generous with his time. I collared him for a few lines right
before the full fury of crush struck. We spoke about what Siduri is
doing with screwcaps. This is scarcely an
interview, but as I scramble for time to revive this Website, hey, it'll
do!

APJ: Question,
Adam ─
you've been using screwcaps on some of your regional bottlings, a
practice that I heartily endorse. What drives the decision to screwcap
some wines and not others? Do you have a cutoff price-point, or is it
something else? (By the way, congrats on
your Sonoma County bottling getting awarded "Best
American Pinot Noir under $20"
by Food and Wine magazine. What took 'em so
long to discover it! )
Adam: We've used
screwcaps thus far on our Appellation wines,
but it isn't a price point thing. We've got a number of customers that
have been aging our single-vineyard Pinots for 5-7 years or perhaps
more. We've been doing some trials on those wines, bottling them mainly
under cork, but a few cases under screwcap to see how they do with more
years. We are 3 years in and so far so good. With the Appellation wines,
we seem to have far fewer folks aging them for more than 3+ years so we
feel pretty good about going that way. Does that make sense?
APJ: Yes, it makes
plenty of sense, but I also noticed that some of your appellation wines
come with corks, and some with screwcaps?
Adam: Not any
more. We did that trial as well for fewer
years...just a couple. We were pleased,
so now all appellation pinots are screwcaps.
APJ: So I take it
that restaurants are okay with this?
Adam: With the
screwcaps? Or with our gradual process of getting there? They seem to
like the screwcaps.
APJ: I meant with
the screwcaps. That's great news. If the sommeliers are okay with it, I
would guess they'll educate the consumers.
Go back to interview contents
page
|