Dialogue: Advantage enhanced by move to screw-top bottles

Replacing wine-bottle corks with screw tops plays to New Zealand wines' greatest strength by reinforcing their quality, writes DAVID CLEAVE.

New Zealanders take a justifiable pride in their wine industry's international reputation. Perhaps they can, therefore, be forgiven the odd twinge of anxiety about the introduction of screw-top bottles for some of their wine exports.

Inevitably, there will be those who fear that winemakers are about to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

New Zealand should not, however, be over-worried by the adoption of Stelvin caps.

On the contrary, the move will almost certainly reinforce its reputation as a source of premium quality wine.

But the New Zealand wine industry might have been facing longer-term difficulties had it failed to introduce Stelvin closures for at least some of its wine varieties.

Last year, riesling producers from Australia's Clare Valley earned considerable acclaim by launching their 2000 vintage in Britain in Stelvin-capped bottles.

Far from ending up at the cheap and nasty end of the market, these excellent wines featured in a promotion by Harrod's, the exclusive Knightsbridge store. They have also been included on the wine lists of some of London's smarter restaurants and in some of the country's leading independent wine merchants.

This success has now paved the way for the use of Stelvin caps by other wine producers, including New Zealanders.

There is no mystery about this Australian success. Conservative estimates put the percentage of corked wines at 8 to 10 per cent (my experiences over the past year would suggest it is higher), something that is wholly unacceptable in today's market.

By removing the problem of cork taint, Stelvin caps ensure greater consistency of quality. Thus, they play to the strengths of wines such as riesling, sauvignon blanc and unoaked chardonnay, which are aromatic and gain much of their appeal from their aroma. Of course, these are all wines that New Zealand excels at producing.

The British wine market has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. New World producers, such as New Zealand, Australia and California, now claim a 50 per cent market share.

Australia leads the pack and this year is expected to replace France as Britain's single largest provider of wine in terms of value.

If Australian winemakers are achieving greater quality consistency through innovative bottle closures, there will inevitably be pressure on other New World producers to follow suit. No doubt, this was recognised by the Marlborough producers that introduced Stelvin-capped wines earlier this month.

British market expectations matter to New Zealand wine producers because Britain remains by far the largest of its industry's export markets.

New Zealand wines are highly regarded in Britain for their quality and freshness, and command a higher average price per bottle than any other country's wines. But, because a bottle of New Zealand wine is comparatively expensive, it needs to be at least as consistent in quality as anyone else's wine.

Eliminating cork taint will help New Zealand to seal in its quality advantage and help it to retain and expand its market niche.

There is also strong evidence that Stelvin caps ensure that a wine arrives gracefully at its full maturity. During the early 1980s, the Australian wine giant Yalumba used screw-cap bottles for some of its famed library stock. This wine now tastes superb.

Similarly, studies carried out at Geisenheim in Germany have underscored the view that Stelvin closure helps wine to age more consistently, albeit more slowly.

In a highly competitive market, it is obviously advantageous for New Zealand wines to be able to retain their quality and consistency over time.

Meanwhile, as someone who admires your wine industry and enjoys your wines, it is gratifying to see a group of New Zealand producers working together to promote the Stelvin concept.

One of the advantages Australian winemakers have long enjoyed is their ability to cooperate to project a cohesive and united brand image. The same willingness to pull together has not always been apparent on your side of the Tasman Sea.

Hopefully, the Marlborough Stelvin group represents the face of things to come in terms of how the New Zealand industry operates.

So what are we to make of the contention that wine will lose its mystique if it comes in a screw-top bottle instead of a corked one?

Quite simply, New Zealand wines do not sell on their mystique but on their quality. Today's sophisticated wine drinkers are far more interested in the content of wine bottles than in the way they are opened.

This should play to the New Zealand industry's greatest strength, the quality of its wines.

* David Gleave, a Master of Wine, is a leading British importer of wines, including those from New Zealand.