wineries shipping bottles with no capsules??

Is anybody aware of wineries who are shipping wine without capsules? I received a six-pack of wine today from a winery that is new to me and when I opened the box this evening I saw six bottles without capsules. Is this SOP for some wineries or did some bottles get missed? And, what is the effect of bottles with no capsules?

Thanks,

Mark

Bedrock’s SOP. Easy to pick out in the cellar too.

Michael:

Thanks for the reply and it is Bedrock. I’m looking forward to trying a bottle in next month or two and then letting the rest sleep.

Mark

Mark,

There are a number of wineries that do not use capsules. Copain, Big Basin and Bedrock are three that come to mind. Bradley Brown of Big Basin has a video on his site explaining why he chose to go without a capsule. I’m sure some may disagree on the practice, but being able to see the condition of the cork is certainly one advantage.

Cheers,

Steve

The ones I have tried are good now and will be even better in the future, but good luck keep’n your hands off of them.

I am a HUGE fan of no capsules (like bedrock) as it is easy to see if there has been seepage, etc. It is always a bummer to keep a bottle for years in the cellar only to go and open it and find that wine is all the way up the cork and even stained the TOP of the cork when you take the capsule off, like all 3 of my don melchors. This way, it is easier to see if there are problems up front and either not purchase the wine at the shop, or notify shipping/the winery if you feel the wine fell to ill wills during shipping. I wish more wineries did this. Do they even serve a purpose?

Stefania is another one that goes naked.

Bedrock, Copain and Wind Gap in my cellar are all without capsule. Well, some Wind Gaps anyhow.

add Arcadian to the list as of the 2007 vintage (at least w/ the Sleepy Hollow pinot)

I like this practice for Whites and non agers(consumption in the first 7 years) but would like to see something on the exposed cork like Wax or Coin capsule, particularly for the agers, this way you can still see the cork/ullage.

This is a good question, and though I cannot answer for Pax, Wells Guthrie, and Bradley, I can certainly give you the brief breakdown of the decision making for my wines.

Pros of the capsule: It is non-threatening to the consumer and is an almost an expected part of the package. If my greatest fantasy happens and I have to worry about people forging bottles of the wine the capsule is an additional barrier to this.

Cons to the capsule: The process of making tin capsules uses lots of water which is no-bueno for our H2O starved state (I’d rather see it go to the farmers in the Central Valley that need it to survive) if made here, and if made in Spain, like many, have a pretty narly carbon footprint. Foils only serve to to cover up cork damage (thank you to Bradley for that great video). I operate my winery on slimmer margins than many as I want to offer good QPA and at .10 cents a capsule my 3,000 cases or so of production still equates to $3-4k saved on something that essentially does nothing.

Many of these same reasons have contributed to my decision to put the high-end Syrahs and Sauvignon Blanc into lighter Burg bottles for upcoming releases.

One of Arista’s pinots last year came without a capsule.

When I was ITB at least one case of Italian wine was bottled with capsules but no corks. Apparently the bottling line ran out of corks.

As luck would have it, this case went to a top account and the retail customer who purchsed the case ended up with wine stains on his trunk carpet and complained to the retailer. That was the end of that brand in the store.

It is my understanding that capsules originated as a means to keep servants from slipping corks out of expensive wines and replacing them with plonk. Since in these tough economic time I cannot I afford a staff, a capsule is a waste of foil and a nuisance to remove.

Top of my head, I add Dain & Scholium.

I also like them as you can spot them easily in the cellar.
I also like the wax ‘dot’ like V29, St Helena Winery and Gemstone.

Anthill Farms appellation wines have no capsule.

I think that the bottles look unfinished.

Andrew,

That is interesting.

All,

To be clear, I purposely didn’t name the winery in the original post because I wasn’t sure if it was sop or, somehow, a mistake. Once Michael (I think) name Bedrock as doing it, I did name them. I am not questioning the practice of no capsules (and nobody as stated that I was). Heck, I don’t know enough about capsules/no capsules or other methods of sealing wine to question it.

But I am very much looking forward to waiting a month and then opening one bottle of Bedrock.

Mark

It’s nothing new.
From Wines & Vines, August 1996, “To capsule … or not to capsule”: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3488/is_n8_v77/ai_18660363/


From a winemaker’s blog, “Capsules - Who Needs 'Em?”: http://www.winemakernotesblog.com/2010/05/capsules-who-needs-em.html

Like Mike said Abe uses no capsules @ Scholium. If going NC it is nice if the end of the cork has some kind of easily discernible emblem on it.

Outside the USA, Nikolaihof (Austria) uses no capsules. Any way we can reduce waste in a standard bottle package is a plus for me.