By James Atkinson
Recent media reports suggesting that Penfolds was moving some of its releases back to cork closures were inaccurate, the winemaker says.
Reports claimed Penfolds had made the unprecedented move to offer consumers the choice of either screwcap or cork on all its releases except Grange, which remains a 100 per cent cork release.
But Penfolds global brand business director Sandy Mayo told TheShout this was not a change in direction for the winemaker.
"There's not really been a shift back to cork…. we've never had any of our wines other than our whites purely under screwcap," she said.
"We've always offered choice on our red wines, depending on the market."
"Obviously markets that are more traditional prefer cork. Asia, the U.S. and a lot of Europe want the wines under cork," Mayo said.
She said the proportion of each release that goes under a cork depends on the vintage and demand for exports.
"We still sell a huge amount of wine in Australia, which is a market that prefers screwcap. It is really about choice and what consumers in a market prefer."
Mayo said Grange is not under screwcap because the Penfolds winemaking team remains unsure about the impact of the closure on a wine that could be kept for up to fifty years.
"We put a lot of time into making sure we're choosing good corks for our wines," she said.
"We feel comfortable that putting our wines under cork, we're delivering the right quality to our consumers."