Bottle of Chinon Blanc from Baudry-Dutour sealed with a screwcap

Interesting comments from Hervé Lalau on Vinocamp and its cork sponsors here on his Chroniques Vineuses.

White Chinon from Baudry-Dutour closed with screwcap

'Here are my views on the "environmental" side of the cork issue. I did not try to make a very elegant text (not to be reproduced as such), but the ideas are there.

The « environmental issue ».

First of all, it is very difficult to find adequate data. And, when it is available, it is so biassed by the sponsor of the study that you can question its validity. So, I shall stick to the ideas, not their figures.

“Against” the aluminum: it takes electricity to extract the metal from bauxite. That is true.

Objection: once aluminum is available, it is very easy to recycle. You just don’t recycle cork.

“Pro” oak bark: it keeps local manpower at work and maintains the forest.

Objection: the number of manual workers actually involved in the collection of the bark (once every 8-12 years or so on any individual tree), and the number involved in “keeping the forest tidy” is very small indeed.

Moreover, most places (see Alentejo) where the cork-oak is found are no forests any more. You find the trees in clusters amongst other agricultural activities (wheat for instance).

The transportation issue

The volume (in bulk) for corks and screw-caps is similar, from the manufacturer to the end-user. But cork is heavier (marginally so, I admit).

Aluminum (raw material), when journeying between the production site and the manufacturer, takes very little room indeed. Cork needs a lot of volume, even unprocessed. And the places in the world where it is harvested are scarce and very concentrated (Portugal amongst others).

The air pollution issue

Manual workers invade the places of harvest with diesel vehicles and use combustion engine driven tools in a plenty (mostly two-stroke). By and large, they need to cover a lot of kilometers (from one collection site to the other)

The bark treatment issue

Suffices it to read the producers’ own site and take a look at the steps needed in the manufacturing of final corks: it is water and chemistry (chlorine) from one end to the other.

As a summary: yes, extracting aluminum from its ore demands electricity but recycling decreases this disadvantage. No, cork-oak forest for the purpose of collecting the bark is NOT an activity with sustainable advantages.'

See my recent post on screwcaps here.  

Jean-Martin Dutour

While tasting at Baudry-Dutour I asked Jean-Martin Dutour whether there had been any communication with the producers of Bourgueil since his recent election to president of InterLoire. Bourgueil has recently left Interloire to go their own way. There hasn't been any contact and I rather gather that the feeling is that Bourgueil is being left to discover how feasible, in particular the level of what additional costs there are, it is to promote themselves without the aid of a body like InterLoire, covering the region from Nantes to eastern Touraine.

We discussed in some detail the tricky question du jour – who has precedence: Jean Martin Dutour as president of InterLoire or his business partner Christophe Baudry, maire of Cravant-les-Coteaux since March 2008. Initially Jean-Martin thought it was Christophe as he was chosen by the electors (some 300-400) of Cravant. However, Sylvine Teston, the export director, pointed out that Jean-Martin had been elected by some 1400 producers. Clearly further reflection is required before a ruling can be made on this tricky question of etiquette. In the meantime I will have to decide who to greet first when I see them at the Salon des Vins de Loire.

Baudy-Dutour's screwcapped Chinon Blanc

We also discussed the advantages of using screwcaps on both aromatic whites, typified by Sauvignon Blanc, and less aromatic but often delicate whites such as Muscadet or Chenin Blanc. Baudry-Dutour screwcap their stainless steel fermented Chinon Blanc for export markets but use a cork for France because French sommeliers continue to oppose screwcaps. Jean-Martin is convinced that screwcaps are the best closure for this type of white. It appears that the sommeliers oppose screwcaps because it does away with the ceremony involved in wielding a corkscrew when opening a bottle and that once this is done away with their role will appear redundant.

Of course any sommelier who thinks that their only role is to remove the cork from a bottle is a complete waste of space. The real and most useful role of a sommelier isto offer advice to their customers to help them choose a wine that they will enjoy, that will match/complement the food they are having and is at a price they can afford.

Jean-Martin says that once they explain to their private customers the benefits of screwcapping wines, they have no problem buying wines closed with screwcaps. If this is the way a large number of Loire producers think, then it is long time for them to stand up and have the balls make a statement just as the Riesling producers of Clare did in 2000 and the New Zealanders did the following year. Get together, bottle your wines under screwcap, explain to the media why you are doing this and I fancy the sommeliers' opposition will melt away. But it has to be a concerted effort.

Something for the new president of InterLoire to add to his agenda?

PS: See also a post by my fellow Cinq du Vin, Hervé Lalau here.