Had the 2019 Haut Bailly Rosé (great value, definitely toward the bolder/watermelon/cherry side of things, but not overdone) and was intrigued by the closure, as shown. The glass top is a new thing for me.
Isabel Monadavi Rose is bottled under glass closure. Nothing special. I do save a few as a closure for a bottle that’s been opened. My corkscrew didn’t work on these.
Glass closures were a bigger thing maybe 10-12 years ago. No idea why they faded out, though it’s usually a cost issue.
Well, Glen…that glass closure is called a VinoLoc. Not very common, but there are a few wines put up under it.
The Teflon collar makes it tough to extract & I usually have to use a knife to pry it out. Or sometimes even a 10-kT mini-nuke.
Tom
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I used to see a number of Austrian wines, and some Germans with the glass stopper. I liked it. It was easy (except for Mr. Hill).
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Definitely much easier than a screw pull.
Brezza used to bottle their Cannubi Barbera under VinoLoc.
We used these for many years, still do for a wine or two each year. They work well. Side-by-side bottlings with Vinolok and cork
show that wines age better under Vinolok (fresher fruit, no off-flavors). I’d say (and research I’ve seen backs this up) tin-lined screw caps
are best for preventing oxygen ingress, with saranex-lined caps and Vinolok next best.
The biggest impediment is not cost. Cork and capsule are more expensive. Finding bottling lines to run Vinolok can be an issue.
Choices of bottles are not great, either.
Opening is simple. You have all the tools you need at the end of your arms (hands). Rather than pulling straight up, snapping to one side
works well.
(Apologies for this. Tom Hill, please send me an email. You can do that by going to our website, www.sineann.com)
Peter Rosback
Sineann
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I’ve seen them, bought wine with them, enjoyed them. I did not know cork and capsule were more expensive! I’ll be looking into these for future bottlings.
Dan Kravitz
Calera bottled their coastal pinot under that closure years ago, hopefully they still do. Natural corks suck.
Peter,
e-mail sent.
Tom
Henschke use Vinolok on a few of their higher-end reds. A very good closure.
I’m in favor of anything that’s not “natural cork.” It’s 2020, people.
Yup, over the years I’ve found a few wines with these, and each time I was happy to not have to worry about TCA issues (mostly).
I’ve had them on several bottlings I’ve purchased and have been very happy with them as closures. I have to say, however, that the esteemed Mr. Hill was not the only one who had trouble removing them.
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These VinoLocs were quite often used in Austria, usually in Styrian wines 10 yeas ago, now less often. I’ve also seen them in Baden and Franken. Working well. No problems to open.
I believe Whitehall Lane has used them in the past - not sure about the situation currently.
There’s a line of budget Vento wines- can’t recall the producer - that uses these. Mostly stuff like $10 Corvina.
They did, on their Reserve and Leonardini bottlings at least. Also not sure what they do now…
I’ve seen these on a few Weinbach wines, kinda cool imo