Main Line Vine Wine thoughts from Philadelphia

On wine store afternoons and the Alpen cap

Stepping into the quiet space, I was the sole customer on the floor, an early afternoon voyager disembarking from the working week – momentarily – to decompress in the cool silence of racks and glass. I was in Wilmington and, before steering home from the First State, I stopped at a go-to source for a legion of Delawineareans, Frank’s Union Wine Mart, for a spell.

And what a spell it was. I’m not quick to conjure a more inviting refuge from a Thursday – that is, unless you’re fortunate enough to slip the gravitational pull of a typical work day. I get it, many would rather be slathered in spf, scarfing a crab cake hoagie on a Cape May dune but short of that daydream, and within the confines of the day to day, what better environment than a wine shop to slacken the blood pressure? At Frank’s, it’s all easy chatter with the employees amongst the stacks. Wearing jeans and comfortable shoes, tending to their easy-flowing yet precise shop keeping, they’re readily derailed by random topics veering toward Sonoma, well priced Burgundy and the like. The minutes float by, under the influence.

The lull wouldn’t sustain, though, and I knew my time in the retail retreat was bounded. Purchases were in the balance and I was eyeing several possibilities: German Riesling, a white Chateauneuf du Pape, a well priced Burgundy. Finally, the money dropped on a mixed pair – one a bottle of trendy and the other a qualified sleeper. The former was a Cava. A rose Cava. Anyone who casually follows wine will recognize this exacta – pink Spanish bubbly is as firmly “now” as the shallow headlines on Yahoo, if not more soundly gratifying. The latter was an Austrian red, a 2009 Zweigelt from Zum Martin Sepp.

Auf Wiedersehen, Frank. 

It was the Austrian I popped later that evening. Zweigelt is medium bodied, dry, slightly funky and spicy – that sort of moderate (12% alcohol), under ripe, cranberry-meets-cherry wine that gets the mouth’s waterworks cranking. As smooth and seamlessly constructed as a Strauss waltz, the first half of the bottle sent me to bed with visions of Franz Ferdinand, Alpen hats and efficient railways. I’m happy to enlist additional Austrian iconography to the roster, by the way. Fire away.

There was another conspicuous aspect to this one-liter bottle: Its closure. I’d read about the crown cap (think old fashion Coke bottles or Martinelli’s sparkling cider) in George Taber’s curiously engaging book, To Cork or Not to Cork, dedicated to the long-standing dispute over the best way to seal a wine bottle.

The fellows at Frank’s confirmed what I’d read about, American consumers’ adversity to “strange” closures. In some minds, a stopper like the crown cheapens the perceived quality of the beverage. Here’s what you need to know: The crown creates an ultra-tight seal and diminishes the threat of oxidation or cork failure. Fear not, friends. Beyond providing a righteous glass of wine, it might just prove a conversation piece for the evening.

Austrian bottle closures as a bridge to consistent, fresh wine and dinner party chatter. Discuss amongst yourselves.

VIDEO: Wine corks and closures with Kevin Ecock

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