Leasingham Cork Closures Experiment

Ok, so what are we looking at?

Well, what this photo is showing is 14 bottles of identical samples of Leasingham Estate 1999 Clare Valley Semillon, all cellared together for 10 years.

They range all the way from watery pale to a dark brown. The bottle on the left, perfect in color (and reportedly in taste), was closed with a Stelvin (screwcap) closure!  The others have a variety of natural and processed cork or synthetic stoppers.

If this doesn’t blow your mind I don’t know what will!

Thousands of bottles were sealed with different closures, including natural and synthetic corks as well as one sample under screw cap. The bottled wines were analyzed over a 10 year period by sensory and analytical methods and photographed.
"It is well known that screw cap closures eliminate cork taint (TCA) and premature oxidization, but what this trial reveals is the fact that wine does mature/age in the bottle over time under screw cap. This is the most misunderstood aspect of the closure debate. Australians have been conducting both red and white wine screw cap trials for 20-30 years, so experience tells us this is indeed the case, but this is the first trial on such a grand scale to highlight this little-known fact” said the official report from Leasinghan.

(This article is a repost which was never transitioned from my previous blog)