# Why we use crown caps, not corks By Dan Person, winemaker and co-founder at Carboniste. Published 2026-10-09. Canonical page: https://carboniste.com/blog/crown-cap-vs-cork ![Close-up of the red crown cap on a bottle of 2024 Carboniste Crab sparkling orange wine on a blue picnic table at golden hour, with a bottle opener and a glass of orange sparkling wine behind it](https://carboniste.com/images/blog/p05-crab-crown-cap-2400.webp) **The short answer:** every critter we make is sealed with a red crown cap, the same kind of cap you'd find on a bottle of beer. It keeps cork flavors out of the wine, lets in the same small amount of oxygen bottle after bottle, and opens with an ordinary bottle opener. And it isn't a shortcut. Almost every bottle of Champagne spends its years in the cellar under a crown cap too. You just never see it. ## How we ended up with crown caps The honest origin story is a practical one. When winemaker and co-founder Dan Person bottled our first vintage, he didn't have a machine to put on a wire cage. "It just kind of made sense to use crown caps, 'cause I didn't have a corker or wire hooder," he says. Then he realized it was the right call anyway. "Doing that on the first vintage just kind of sets the tone, right? It sets the expectation and the brand." We wanted wines that were fresh, clean, bright and full of energy, and the crown cap protects exactly that. Why red? "It's a bright, fun color," Dan says. "It helps to draw positive attention to the wine." ## Cork has a flavor This is the part most people don't know. Cork isn't neutral. "Believe it or not, cork has flavor," Dan says. "When you put a cork on a wine, wine over time extracts flavor from that cork. It kind of acts like tea." Over time, a wine under cork picks up what Dan describes as mushroom, dry herbs, black tea, sometimes something chocolatey or burnt toast. These aren't the musty "corked" smell from a faulty cork, which is a separate problem. They're simply the taste of cork. "If they're not corked, they just taste like cork," he says. "It's not a specific taint, it just tastes like a soggy piece of wood." He says people often mistake an older sparkling wine for a corked one when it's really just been sitting against its cork for years. Those earthy, mushroomy flavors come from the cork, not from the grapes or the barrel. "I didn't want to make wines that tasted like cork," he says. "I wanted to make wines that tasted like grapes." ## Steady from bottle to bottle A crown cap is inert. It adds no flavor, and it protects the wine. It isn't perfectly airtight, and Dan likes that. "There is oxygen ingress, and what's kind of nice about that oxygen ingress is that it's a metered amount," he says. "Every crown cap that you use is going to give you that same amount." Cork is a natural material, so every piece behaves a little differently, and two bottles of the same wine can drift apart over the years. That's why our critters age better under a crown cap than they would under cork. Most of them aren't built for long aging anyway. We release each one when it's at its best, and the cap keeps it there. The Octopus, our sparkling Albariño, is the clearest case: we want it to stay young, bright and energetic for as long as possible. ## The secret of the Champagne cellar Here's the myth-buster. "Almost every bottle of Champagne, when it's originally bottled, goes into bottle under a crown cap," Dan says. The wine goes through its second fermentation and rests on its yeast under a crown cap, often for years. Only after disgorging, when the yeast comes out and the bottle is ready for sale, does the familiar cork and wire cage go on. So why the cork at the end? Tradition, and the rules. European wine law says sparkling wine sold in standard bottles has to be closed with a mushroom-shaped stopper held on by a wire fastening. The rule allows other food-safe materials, but in practice that means cork. "It basically says that you cannot use a crown cap for your final closure," Dan says. In other words, the cork and cage on a bottle of Champagne is part of how it looks, not part of how it's made. California has no such rule, so we get to choose. "Crown caps are part of Champagne," Dan says. "It's just not the part that you see." ## What people think when they see one "I'm sure there's a perception that it's a less expensive wine, or that it's a pét-nat," Dan says. Pét-nats, the rustic single-fermentation sparklers, often wear crown caps, so people connect the two. But we use crown caps on our traditional-method wines too: the same method as Champagne, with a second fermentation in the bottle. Dan would flip the assumption around entirely. The one thing he wants you to remember: "Crown caps are actually a sign of quality for the wine. The wine is protected by a crown cap." ## How to open a crown cap "If you can open a bottle of beer, you can open a crown cap," Dan says. All you need is a bottle opener. "Anyone can do it, and you're unlikely to get hurt doing it. You're unlikely to poke someone's eye out." Keep the bottle well chilled and point it away from anyone while you open it, the same as any sparkling wine. And no, a crown cap doesn't go back on once it's off. A sparkling wine stopper from any kitchen shop will keep an opened bottle fresh in the fridge. ## The one downside Ask Dan for a downside and he has exactly one: the party pop. With a cork and cage, you can work the cork out slowly and quietly, the sommelier way, or you can send it across the room. "I kind of prefer, when I open a bottle of cork-finished sparkling wine, to give it a party pop," he admits. "I find that to be a lot more fun." With a crown cap, you mostly get a quick hiss instead. "If I open the crown cap very rapidly I can get a kind of pop sound," he says. "But for the most part, you kinda lose that pop." ## So why do our Reserve wines have corks? Fair question. Our Reserve wines have used cork and cage since the 2020 vintage; earlier Reserve vintages wore red crown caps. The cork is mostly a signal. "It's a communication point that these wines are a little bit different," Dan says. "They are a little more special, a little more precious, I suppose, and they're also more traditional." The Reserve wines are also built differently from the critters. They're made from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the classic Champagne grapes, they spend years in barrel and bottle, and they're meant to keep developing slowly after release. The critters are made to be enjoyed fresh, and for them the crown cap is the better closure. ## What to open Dan's pick for a crown cap night is the Crab, our sparkling orange wine: juicy, full-bodied, and sealed with a red cap. Grab a bottle opener and you're in. [Meet the Crab](/products/crab-extra-brut) ## Quick answers **Why does my sparkling wine have a bottle cap?** We seal our critter wines with a crown cap because it keeps cork flavors out and lets in a small, consistent amount of oxygen, so every bottle tastes the way we intended. **Is a crown cap a sign of cheap wine?** No. Champagne houses age their wines under crown caps before disgorging. The cork and cage go on at the end, by tradition and European law. **How do you open a crown cap on sparkling wine?** With a regular bottle opener, the same way you'd open a beer. Keep the bottle cold and point it away from people. **Do crown caps let wine age?** Yes. A crown cap lets in a tiny, steady amount of oxygen and adds no flavor of its own, so the wine ages evenly from bottle to bottle. --- Wines in this post: [Crab Extra Brut](https://carboniste.com/products/crab-extra-brut)