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August 2018 WINES&VINES 53 PACKAGING Such machines were intro- duced recently, but it has taken some time for them to achieve throughput rates that could war- rant commercial distribution. In addition to Cork Supply, the world's largest cork company, Amorim, now has what it calls its NDtech system that screens indi- vidual natural corks that are then guaranteed by the supplier. The NDtech corks are also available in the United States through Amorim's subsidiary, Portocork, and sold as ICON certified. Lafitte Cork & Capsule, based in Napa, Calif., is now selling its highest-grade corks that have undergone individual sensory and laboratory testing through its Electvs program with a 100% guarantee. M.A. Silva USA in Santa Rosa, Calif., is also devel- oping what it calls the "onebyone" system to deliver individually inspected and guaranteed corks. Scott Laboratories in Peta- luma, Calif., recently unveiled its Scott Plus line of corks, which the supplier reports have undergone an additional layer of screening on top of the standards it applies as an independent buyer of corks. The additional screening consists of sensory and automated analy- sis with improved processing. The company describes the pro- gram as a significant step toward reaching its goal of being TCA- free by 2020. Expanding automated analysis At Cork Supply, the company had an operational cork-screening ma- chine in 2017 and has since added five others that improved on the first working prototype, said Greg Hirson, the company's senior di- rector of technical services. Those improvements included changes to how the machines op- erate and how the corks move through the screening process. The detection process is a propri- etary one developed by Cork Sup- ply that involves a cork entering a chamber where it is warmed slightly. Any volatile compounds released by the cork are collected in the chamber and then concen- trated to provide a sufficient sam- ple for analysis. Rejected corks are culled from the production chain. Hirson said Cork Supply is now filling orders of corks processed through what it's calling the DS100+ process but in relatively small number as the company con- tinues to evaluate and improve the machines. "We're still in the pro- cess of making sure what we're putting out in the market meets our quality requirements," he said. "We're working as quickly as we can, given we have these high standards of quality." Corks that have gone through the human-powered screening program, DS100, remain in high demand from winery clients, so Hirson said Cork Supply wants to ensure the machines deliver the same level of quality. The average rate of rejection from the DS100 system is about 8%, and Hirson said the machines are at a higher rate because the standards are much tighter as the automated process is further re- fined. Rejected corks in Portugal are typically used in other prod- ucts such as flooring, and in the United States, Hirson said, most are being collected by nonprofit groups and schools that use the corks for craft projects. Schleussner didn't foresee the d e v e l o p m e n t o f a u t o m a t e d screening machines but said it makes sense because the analysis itself isn't that difficult; it's the automation at a high rate of preci- sion and speed that would be a challenge. Silver Oak has purchased a sig- nificant number of individually screened corks for bottling this year, and Schleussner said those corks came from Cork Supply, Amorim, Portocork and Scott Labs. She said the winery already ex- pects few problems because ever since that badly tainted imperial, Silver Oak has reduced its rate of corked bottles to less than 0.5%. She said she's no longer con- cerned about the "real stinkers," but is still concerned about the corks on the threshold of percep- tion or others contaminated by different compounds that may not register as TCA. A career working with analytical equipment has also taught her that machines can fail to perform as expected. Amorim's director of marketing and communications Carlos de Jesus said that since the NDtech program launched commercially in 2017, Amorim has supplied a total of 20 million corks pro- cessed through the system to 1,200 wineries around the world. U.S. wineries have received about 12 million corks. De Jesus said the company is trying to add produc- tion capacity as quickly as possi- ble, but it's not simply a matter of adding more machines but rather The rejection rate of the new DS100+ system is typically higher than the DS100 process that relies on sensory analysis. One of Cork Supply's new machines to automatically analyze corks as part of the company's DS100+ system. CORK SUPPLY ©JORGE SIMAO