Screw Cap vs Cork: Does It Actually Affect Quality?

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

For decades a screw cap meant cheap wine and a cork meant the real thing. That shortcut is now wrong often enough to throw away. Some of the world’s best whites come under screw cap, and a cork is no promise of quality. Here is what each closure actually does, and whether it changes what is in your glass.

The Two Closures

A cork is punched from the bark of the cork oak, a natural material that has sealed bottles for centuries. A screw cap, properly a Stelvin closure, is an aluminium cap with a liner inside that sits over the bottle’s threads. Both have one main job: seal the wine and control the tiny amount of oxygen that reaches it over time.

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Screw Cap vs Cork: Does It Actually Affect Quality?

The Two Closures