Cheap Medical Advice

A few words on wine from a physician I recently met

“Maybe you’ll have to start drinking wines with screwcaps,” a doctor said to me recently. The doctor wasn’t offering this as medical advice (that would have been interesting) but responding to the fact that I’d recently lost my job.

The doctor’s implication was clear: only cheap wines are closed with a screwcap and a freelance writer could only afford to drink bargain-priced wines. “I drank screwcap wines when I had a job,” I imagined informing this new-to-me doctor but decided to educate him a bit about screwcap wines instead.

Did the good doctor know that most of the wines from countries like Austria and New Zealand are closed with screwcaps – from their cheapest offerings to some of their very best bottles? Did he not realize that screwcap wines are produced by great winemakers all over the world- from California to Argentina to Burgundy to the Finger Lakes in New York? These wines weren’t mass-produced plonk but even included three-figure Napa Cabernets. For example, Plumpjack Winery in Oakville has long produced a top Cabernet Sauvignon under both screw and cork. “I’m not much of a wine drinker,” the doctor said.

It’s certainly a very different screwcap situation than it was 25 years ago when a group of New Zealand winemakers launched their “New Zealand Screwcap Wine Seal Initiative” advocating widespread use of the closure. I was in New Zealand soon after the initiative launched and I witnessed (and was occasionally drawn into) many a heated discussion about the closure. The group eventually triumphed and today some 90% of Kiwi wines are closed by screwcap.

I’m a big believer in screwcap wines – especially white and pink wines intended to be consumed within a year or two of bottling. I probably drink at least one screwcap wine each week- especially when I’m going somewhere BYOB and don’t want to worry about the possibility of bringing a wine that is corked.

How many (non-cheap) screwcap wines do I actually own? After meeting with the non-oenophile doctor I went down to my cellar to potentially rebuke his point. What I found was, well, some cheap screwcap wine. Not truly cheap but no wine that cost more than $25 a bottle – and many much less though I did find good wines that I’m happy to recommend. Here are four favorites:

2025 Domäne Wachau Grüner Veltliner Terrassen Federspiel $19

This crisp slightly spicy medium-bodied Grüner is produced by a top cooperative winery in the Wachau region of Austria. It’s a wonderfully versatile wine with food- especially with hard-to-pair vegetables like artichokes and asparagus (I paired it with both).

2023 Günther Steinmetz Wintricher Geierslay Riesling “Sur Lie” $20

This delightfully refreshing wonderfully citrusy white (think fresh-squeezed limes) is one of several wines bottled under screwcap at this well-regarded family-owned winery in Brauneberg, Germany. I guess you could say they’re (also) screwcap fans.

2025 Stefano Massone Masera Gavi $13

This Piedmontese dry white is one of my favorite bargain wines year after year from a reliably good Gavi producer. What it may lack in complexity it (more than) makes up for in easy-drinking deliciousness.

2023 Domaine Servin Chablis Les Pargues $25

This bottling from Domaine Servin is one of just a few Chablis that I’ve found bottled under screwcap. I wish there were more such wines but I was glad to find one as good as this dry, minerally white from Domaine Servin.

Addendum: I purchased all of the wines referenced in this (and previous) Substack columns although I recently – and for the first time in more than fourteen years- accepted a few samples that may appear (and will be duly noted) in this column at some future time.

J