You’ve probably heard people argue about wine bottle closure.  Cork vs. screwtop.  Real cork or synthetic cork.  Bottle vs amphorae. People rage on about technical sounding concepts like TCA and Stelvins and all kinds of crazy advanced crap.  Arguments can employ precise percentages from comprehensive studies or anecdotal evidence from last night’s dinner.  People get really passionate about it too.  REALLY REALLY passionate.

Well I’ve kept silent long enough.  I need to make a confession.

The secret origin of the wine closure debate: I made it all up to distract people while I drank all their wine.  Sorry, guys.

The Creation of the Wine Closure Debate

One night, we were sitting around and there was only one glass left in the bottom of the last bottle of wine.  And everybody was too polite to pour it for themselves.  Or to afraid to be caught.  So I devised a cunning plan.

I told everybody about the advantages and disadvantages of cork closures as well as synthetic and screwtop closures.  I engineered these descriptions to cater to the political and philosophical tendencies of different people in the room.  And then I set them up to argue uselessly about which one is “better”.  While the argument ensued, I poured the last of the wine in my own glass.  My plan had worked.

But the plan worked too well.  The argument was supposed to distract my friends for a few minutes while I snuck the last glass.  But it lasted ten minutes. Then thirty minutes. Then… it never ended.

Friends, stop arguing.  I know it will be hard to forgive my mischief and trickery. But I had to come clean so that you knew the truth.  You can’t drink wine and argue about bottle closures at the same time.