2000s · Australia and New Zealand
The screwcap decision
Australian and New Zealand producers switched to screwcaps almost wholesale, to eliminate cork taint.
What happened
Frustration with cork taint rates led Clare Valley Riesling producers to launch a coordinated screwcap initiative in 2000, and New Zealand followed with a national screwcap initiative in 2001.
Adoption became close to universal in both countries within a few years — an unusually decisive collective industry action.
It was a quality decision rather than a cost one, and it worked: TCA effectively disappeared from those wines.
The trade-off is reduction: very low oxygen transmission preserves freshness but gives the wine no route to resolve sulfurous notes in bottle.
How firmly this is dated
Documented. Recorded contemporaneously. The date is not in question.
Industry adoption statistics from New Zealand and Australia, and the AWRI closure trials.
Sources
Sources consulted
- The Australian Wine Research Institute — AWRI
- New Zealand Winegrowers annual report — New Zealand Winegrowers
Along the timeline
Before · 1980s onwards
The natural wine movement
A reaction against industrial winemaking that has been both genuinely influential and genuinely contentious.
After · 1980s onwards
Climate change reshapes the wine map
Warming has moved harvest dates, raised alcohol levels and made new regions viable while pressuring old ones.