Yesterday I decided to do a bit of quick informal research into how many screwcap and cork sealed wines are available to consumers. There are figures published for how many Australian wines are sealed under each, but they tend to be skewed since they take into account volume and so wineries producing millions of cases will have a bigger influence in the statistics. I just wanted to find out that for the average consumer who walks into a store, what choices they have.
Read on for the results.
Raw Figures:
Percentages:
Overall:
Budget Wines:
Premium Wines:
Some other general observations:
White varietals most commonly under screwcap: Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc
Red varietals most commonly under screwcap: No clear standout varietals
White varietals least commonly under screwcap: Chardonnay and Semillon
Red varietals least commonly under screwcap: Pinot Noir, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon
Conclusions:
I was expecting that there would be a bigger gap between the use of screwcaps in budget and premium wines, but the figures are actually pretty close. Perhaps the cheaper producers are worried that their wines will be viewed as cheap if they are sealed with screwcap. At this end of the market, image is almost more important than what is actually in the bottle.
In the premium market the figures were probably a little higher in favour of screwcap than I expected. 54% of white wines under screwcap is actually a higher percentage than those in the budget ranges. 15% doesn’t sound like a high percentage for red wines, but it’s actually a fairly large amount
I think this is something that might be interesting to do every 6-12 months to obverse if the percentages change in closure available to consumers or if screwcaps have reached critical mass and won’t make much progress from here.
I guess what would be more difficult to determine are the numbers with composite corks. Probably more likely in the budget wines. Tasted 6 budget Aussie Shiraz on Saturday (less than $12USD) and only one was a screwcap.
Mike
I did have the composite cork issue in mind while counting the bottles, but there wasn’t really any way to tell. In the past year I’ve only come across one composite cork (on a Rose style wine), but you are right that they are probably more prevelant on the budget wines.
Does anyone have any information on the raw cost of composite cork versus the cost of regular cork?
Hello Cam,
You say that there’s statistics published about how many australian wines are sealed under each type of closure… where can I find them??? I’ve asked the ABS and different wine associations like the AWBC and apparently there is nothing published about it.
Thank you
Clara,
I’ll try to find out for you, I know at the time that I wrote this, I had just seen some statistics that prompted me into writing the article.
Have you tried the AWRI?