By BARBARA NOWAK
and BEVERLY PITTMAN
The Saucy Sisters, for Brentwood Home Page
Everyone’s twisting these days. And it’s not a throwback to the dance craze of the 1960s. 

Maybe we’d be more accurate if we said, “un-twisting.” We’re referring to the increasingly prevalent screw-top bottles of wine. We used to associate screw-top wines with winos swigging out of brown paper bags. But screw-top wines have become de rigueur.

Even though screw-tops have been around for a long time, they weren’t favored by either consumers or producers. Cork was the standard. But, when corks starting causing problems for winemakers, attitudes started changing.

Corks can become infected with a chemical called TCA. The infected corks, in turn, can ruin the wine inside the bottle. This “corked” wine smells like someone’s dank basement and tastes worse. This is not what wine producers intend to happen to their wines, and – because it was happening to an estimated 7%-10% of all wines with cork closures – they began to look for alternatives to cork.

There’s no shortage of substitutes from plastic corks to glass stoppers. But it’s the screw-top that has, so far, emerged as the winner. Screw-top wines gained public acceptance years ago in Australia and New Zealand but only lately here in the U.S. In fact, when we were importing New Zealand wines in the 1990s, the bottles had ridges necessary for screw-tops, but the bottles had corks because the producers knew that Americans would look down their noses at wine that had to be unscrewed.

No one is 100% sure how screw-tops will affect the long term aging of wines. But most wines are ready to drink upon release – so we’re not worrying about it. We’ll leave that to the winemakers.

Right now, we’re embracing the screw-top. So much so, that we’re inviting all wine-drinking ladies to join us on Nov. 4 to set a World Record for “most women unscrewing bottles of wine simultaneously.” Tickets to our event are available at www.WineDownMainStreet.com and cost $10 – with the proceeds going to the Boys and Girls Club of Williamson County.

Hope you’ll join us for the Screw-Off . . . Cheers!

Barbara and Beverly 

The Saucy Sisters are wine and spirits experts with a twist. A twist of humor, that is, that they use in their books and in their live performances. Their new book, The Saucy Sisters Guide to Wine – What Every Girl Should Know Before She Unscrews, will be published later this month.  You can call them at 615-807-1743, email them at Saucies@SaucySisters.com or find them at www.SaucySisters.com

And be sure to join them on Nov. 4 to set a World Record for “most women unscrewing bottles of wine simultaneously.” www.WineDownMainStreet.com/get-tickets