TO SCREW OR NOT TO SCREW?

One of the things that I really noticed when I was in Australia was the abundance of screw-top wine bottles. While I've been gone, they seem to have proliferated considerably. Or maybe its just that here in France, screw-top bottles are a faux pas. French consider them to be very unclassy, and the sign of a bad wine. Never mind that screw-tops eliminate the problem of corked wine (incidence estimates range from 1 in 10 to 20 bottles), and are good for the environment (unlike the widespread elimination of cork tree forests). And, you never get in one of those "damn I left it at home" issues with the bottle opener (although one Frenchie with whom I was talking about this very subject last week said, "yeah but Alli, this is France, you can always find someone close by with a bottle opener!").

But, importantly, as always to the French, the cork brings a certain panache, that, well lets face it, screw-tops can't.