Boil On A Buttock vs Cork Snobs

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Screwcap monsters are trying to usurp corks. Absolutley ludicrous! Just look at the photo above. The humble wine bottle cork. It is an icon, a work of art. It is every wine connoisseur’s fantasy mural depicting many nights or afternoons of ribald gastronomic and sensual pleasures. What finer memorial to the nectar of the God’s can one ask for?

Polaroids and videos may suffice for many. But for me the cork still lives of the occassion. It smells of the time and of the wine. The cork. You can pick it up, even throw it across the carpet for the cat to chase. You can fiddle with it and keep your fingers active and le cork still retains the aroma of the wine. Magnificant lingering free prize.

The cork is every winedrinkers’ lasting trophy to splendid and outrageously happy and convivial events. A keepsake from a time of friendly and loving companionship. A fond memory about a special location and the recall of sumptuous pleasures received from sipping a bottle of favourite wine in the company of a beautiful woman and while listening to wonderful music.

Red, Rose’ or White. The fruit from the vine corked in a glass bottle conjurs up lascivious thoughts while your tastebuds orgasm in gleeful delight. Apart from the memories, the cork is the reality, a memento. The sole survivng physical witness to your enjoyment of the wine. The cork is therefore very much a part of the entire essence that makes the wine go down so smoothly all over the world.

The cork design and markings has developed from eons of viticulture and fermenting and the masterful blending of the juices from the grapes. From generation to generation, the cork has held a meaningful and vital presence in our lives. It alone prevents your favoured wine leaking from the bottle. What a waste that’d be.

And then there is the timeless ceremony - the uncorking. Over the ages, we have developed the technique into an artform. Perfecting the technique is part of the glorious ceremony that is drinking wine. Favoured corkscrews are never changed. They are handed down to ones’ heir. Extracting the cork requires a geometrists eye to place the screwpoint precisely in the centre of the cork. If it’s placed a millimeter off-centre there is every chance the cork can be destroyed at the pull out. Getting the cork out in good condition is not a chore for the weakminded to perform. No. Best leave this delicate corking procedure to a professional.

It has to be taken seriously or you might as well go and buy a 5 litre happy box of cheap chardonnay and be done with it.

We collect corks. Hoard corks. We treasure corks. We never stop playing with corks. And now the bit of tin is wanting to replace the splendid cork. All was well in the iScatterling’s world of wine until yesterday when I visited Hugh’s site and spied the abomination hogging the blogspace as if it were the God of bottle caps.

Adorning a bottle of Stormhoek was a screwcap. A piece of tin crowned this noble South African vintner’s bottle full of golden nectar. The bit of tin was doing its best to upstage the noble, debonair and sophisticated cork. How foul. How vile.

Like a boil on a buttock, the screwcap grabbed my attention. What has Stormhoek done? Who had been bitten by a rabid vineyard dog and let this sacriledge occur? Who sanctioned the end to all that wine drinking pleasure? Who is trying to stop my ceremonial cork pulling? Send me this person and I shall lance the boil with a sliver of rusty paraffin tin.

I want all cork supporters to write to their MP and demand the retention of the cork as the supreme and only wine bottle cap.

Do it NOW!

PS: There is a serious side to this. More on this tomorrow.

Boil On A Buttock vs Cork Snobs