Will storing a screw-cap wine bottle upright screw up its ageing process?

Can a wine sealed with a Stelvin cap be stored for ageing standing up or is it still best to keep it on its side?
P.M., Surrey Hills, Vic

A: It is 100 per cent safe to store screw-capped bottles upright. The wadding under the aluminium cap – that little disc that sits inside the cap – is the seal and, unlike cork, doesn’t need to be wet in order to work. That said, if you prefer to lie your bottles down, it won’t do them any harm.

The seal can’t be compromised unless it’s physically damaged. Unfortunately, this can happen quite easily, either from a knock from the base of another bottle or from a bang against something else hard, so always check the integrity of the cap before you hand over your money. If it has obvious dings, don’t buy the bottle.

Its ability to be stored upright is one of the many advantages of the screw-cap bottle. Screw-caps have improved over the 45 or so years that they’ve been used on wine. Some of the 1970s models rusted; the modern aluminium cap won’t ever do that. The wadding has also been improved to make it more reliable.

The screw-cap has also added to our vinous vocabulary. Instead of paying corkage in BYO restaurants, we now refer to it as “screwage”. Instead of cork-sealed wines, we talk about “screwed wines”. Rather than ask a waiter to uncork a bottle, we now say, “Would you please wring its neck?”

If, indeed, we ask the question at all: who needs a waiter with a corkscrew when we can open it ourselves without a special tool?

On a recent European sailing trip, I was reminded of the convenience of the screw-cap when our one and only corkscrew broke. We had to resort to extreme measures to access our European wines – all, sadly, sealed with corks.

Got a drinks question for Huon Hooke? thefullbottle@goodweekend.com.au

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