Tuesday, June 8, 2010

"The solution" to the solution of cork defects


The discussion on screw caps on wine has hardly passed anyone, even just remotely interested in wine. The screwed cap for wine were invented in 1959 in France but it took some considerable time before it really made it's way on to the market. Australia and New Zealand have been leading the development towards screw caps and by 2004 around 70 percent of the New Zealand wines were sealed with a screw cap, also known under the trademark Stelvin.

The one and only reason for inventing the screw cap was to get to the bottom with the problem of cork tainted wines. Cork defects are good for no parties involved in wine trade and changing for the aluminium/plastic hat should do everyone nothing but good.

Nevertheless the screw cap has met some resistance. Recently I went to the hairdresser here in Vienna and we started to talk about wine. I found out that she was fairly well oriented with the vast world of wines, at least the Austrian world... Anyhow it didn't take long until she started to talk about the "horrible development towards screw caps". She said I can live with that there are screw caps on cheap whites but for a wine that costs 4 Euro or more and definitely reds you want to have a "plopp". Without "plopp" all the fun was gone! That was her definite opinion and I started to wonder whether she at all considered the content of the bottle in her wine reviews or if it was only the plopping sound. I didn't pay much attention the the fact that she put the quality mark for one around 4 Euro since I've realized that an extremely small part of the wines bought here are actually priced over 4 Euro.

Now my hairdresser and all other "plopp" fanatics have a solution the the problem with non-plopping screw caps: The wine-disc. The wine disc might not give you a "plopp" from a non-plopping seal but it states on the web-page: "With this bottle opener we are aspiring to counteract the cultural loss represented by the screw top". It is simply wooden device with a metal coated whole in the middle. You press the screw cap into the hole and twist the wine-disc until you've opened the bottle.

To read more visit The winedisc homepage.

//

Lucas Spinnars

Links:

A short note on a screw cap wine from Villa Maria
(Swedish)

The Wine Economist Writes about Corks and Screw Caps (2008 July 26)

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

7-Stern a Microbrewey Vienna with some weird beer

Recently I visited the 7stern (siebenstern) brewery pub in Vienna. For beer interested people it is close to an institution in this city even though its commercial focus tend to overwhelm the brewart that obviously is possessed by the brewmaster. With selection of 7 regular beers they occasionally leave room also for seasonal specialities such as a Maibock during the spring.

The pub is way much bigger than it looks from the outside and with the big polished copper mash tuns behind the bar it is a charming place to hang out an evening or two. If you don't feel attracted by the place but are curious about their beers there is a vending machine by the entrance where you can by their beers freshly bottled.

The Märzen is in my opinon the best beer in the selection. In a traditional Märzen style, far from these blonde light lagerbeers that are today sold as märzen (note Zipfer, Murauer, Gösser etc), this is a brown-reddish, cloudy beer, close to opaque with powerful taste. With an alcohol strength of 5,1% it offers a lot of body and lot of taste without being to heavy. There is a hint of sweetness that does not feel caramelly or sticky and a fruity hoppiness reminding strongly of rose hip.7stern Märzen - The way märzen should be

The second most interesting beer represents a category that makes me happy to see around. Rauchbeer (smoke-beer, or smoked beer) is a German forgotten art today being more or less only sold by under the label of Aecht Schenkerla wich is hardly a commercial brew but still widely available all over Europe (in Sweden found at SB with the number 1359). At 7stern they brew and sell a beer with a distinct smell of smoke, as the sort of tone you would get from smoked salmon. It's dry with a little acidic aftertaste and a hint of liquorice. It's without doubt a beer to be accompanied by food, smoked or grilled with quite a lot of fat is probably the best.

Apart from these two they make a lager and a Prager Dunkles (Prague Dark - Černé) of good but not remarkable quality. They also make two less appealing flavoured beers. One is being brewed with hemp giving the beer a greenish taste that appears a little fat and reminds of olive oil. The other one is a chilibeer with a spice that kills everything else. It's a light lager and the burn is overwhelming everything else. Along with a grilled chicken with a mango-lime salsa I could imagine it as a good pair though. These, close to weird and bordering to unserious beers, could in my eyes very well leave space for someting more interesting, maybe a wheat-beer or a Chech Granate.

I have not had time to try their Maibock yet but I will have to go by and taste it before it's out of season!

So long
Lucas Spinnars

Links:

7stern brewery pub (English and German)

Černé
(Swedish)
Oktoberfest med hela historien om Märzen (Swedish)