ARE WE SCREWED?

No. But there is a big lesson to be learned.

Do the liners in screwcaps cause cancer? Probably. Do they also cause serious pollution of the environment? Certainly. Are they implicated in the TCA problems that the wine industry has been challenged by? Indubitably. Is the health and pollution issue confusing the cork-screwcap debate? Undoubtedly.

So why did I write the piece about endocrine disruption in the Listener ? There will be some, well aware of my objection to screwcaps on environmental grounds, who will believe that I did it to score points against screwcaps, but that is not the case. Indeed, I wish that the possible health consequences of screwcaps had never been a factor, but the truth is they are. The real problem is the gung ho Screwcap Initiative was mislead by bad science and a cavalier attitude to the health implications of food packaging.

Make no mistake, endocrine disruption has been a contentious issue for over 50 years, since the publishing of Silent Spring first raised the grisly prospect of the human cost of pollution by synthetic chemicals, and marked the beginning of the end for DDT. So why did nobody involved in the Screwcap Initiative do the requisite research to make sure their highly vaunted product was safe?

This is a serious question which those involved in adopting screwcaps on the basis of the argument that they deliver “wine as the winemaker intended” should ask themselve. It also begs the question – do winemakers intend their wine to be lethal?

Of course not. At least not intentionally. But then you could argue that the drunk driver who kills a pedestrian never actually meant to do it. But given the responsibility of being in charge of a lethal weapon, to wit, a car, and in the knowledge that out of control cars are killers – well, you get my drift.

However, as a responsible part of the wine industry, when I discovered the role of screwcaps in endocrine disruption pollution, I notified a leading member of the Screwcap Initiative, and a major supplier of screwcaps of my concerns, and was told in one case there was no issue, and in the other, not even the courtesy of a reply.

As a serious journalist, I should not have bothered. Perhaps I should have pursued the possibility of vested interest, that there was too much profit to be made for those changing to screwcaps to want their potential bottom line compromised by the human health factor.

But you see, while that would have made a terrific story and made the headlines of the television news, it would not have been honest. I think there is much more chance that rather than profit the reason that health implications were missed was a simple case of stupidity. This does rather lower the intellectual tone of the Screwcap Initiative and its cheerleaders, without even bothering with the serious chemistry challenge being made against the closures.

Stupidity and the cavalier bloke-ishness of New Zealand 's land based industries are also major contributers to the blunder. There is a long established idea that the land is there for us to do with as we will, to bend it, break it, any way we want to. The sort of fundamentalism that made the wine community laugh out loud at the efforts of James Millton in the early seventies.

Well, it is time to stop laughing and to do something positive. The first step is to get over the idea that anything goes; the second is to make sure the seals in screwcaps are not leaking endocrine disruptors into the environment and killing us. If that makes the screwcaps less efficient at delivering ‘perfect wine as the winemakers intend' then perhaps it is time for winemakers to stop assuming that they are some sort of 21st century gods - in complete control of their environment.

If anybody out there assumes that this will go away if they ignore it, just think about the health warnings we now have to put on our wine bottles. And the one based of foetal alcohol syndrome rests on far shakier science than does the concern over endocrine disruption.

Imagine if your next vintage of Sauvignon Blanc under screwcap is forced to carry the warning CONTENTS MAY CAUSE CANCER, AND BIRTH DEFECTS IN THE CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN AND GREAT GRANDCHILDREN OF THE CONSUMER

Do you really think that will help sales in the United States or Europe ? Do you think that the fact 80% of New Zealand wine is sold in potentially carcinogenic packaging will slip the notice of the French, Italians, or Germans who we compete for over shelf space in our major markets?

And what of New Zealand Winegrowers? They actually have somebody employed to make sure this sort of thing never happens. This is not just a slip up in regulating the stand down time for spray residue, which is horrific enough if it makes the press. This is a major health scare, one that should never have happened if those responsible for watch over the structural essentials of the industry had been doing their jobs.

For New Zealand 's wine industry authorities to know nothing of the risks of PVDC is gross dereliction of duty. It even worse than the proactive stupidity of the Screwcap Initiative whose brief was never to make screwcaps safe. You all pay for our bureaucrats to know that stuff. I am just a simple journo with a love of wine, and I found out about it within weeks of the Screwcap Initiative launch. So why did the industry body not know?

You can come to your own conclusions about that. What must be said is, whatever the cause, it is time the wine industry cleaned up its obsession with these closures. Make them safe or dump them. And get DIAM's producers to come clean about the adhesives they use to bind their pseudo-corks. Do it quickly, there may not be a second chance.

Then we can get on with the real debate about whether screwcaps or corks are best for wine.

Keith Stewart