The slow dance of wine and oxygen

Is no longer. Well, not quite. A recently released study, performed by Southcorp (owner of Penfold's and many other top Aus brands) and the Australian Wine Research Institute, found that oxygen is not a central component in the maturation of wine. The study, which was begun in 1997, involved "premium red wine" that was bottled with different closures (corks, synthetic corks, screw caps, etc) of varying permeability. Having not read the study, I don't know what sort of analysis was performed, but I imagine that samples were tested at least every year. In recent years, screw caps have become increasingly acceptable for white wines (or any wine meant to be drunk young), but the view that wine maturation is essentially a very slow oxidation has lead many to believe that screw caps should never replace corks for wines requiring bottle age. If this turns out to be false (as the study mostly concludes), we may see a much greater use of screw cap closures, which though lacking in romance, do not come with the risk of TCA taint (corkiness). Before accepting the study's findings, I'd like to see long term studies tracing the progession of wine over many years. Wines could be sampled every year from bottling to 30 yrs. Sampling should take the form of both chemical analysis and blind tasting (tasting multiple samples of each at the same time), with tasters selected from noted wine industry professionals or from those who've past the Master of Wine certification. All tasters should have to pass some sort of (friendly) blind tasting to take part. Perhaps not the most feasible study, but that's what I'd like to see. I'd like to see the study myself, but a bried search on the internet turned up nothing.