Wines & Vines

CLOSURES couldn't track back to it again. He admits he's unsure how to incorporate a hive of honeybees into a cork-production facility. Around 2009, the team led by Dr. Miguel Cabral focused on developing an automated process to inspect every cork. The team and some technical partners eventually designed a system employing a carousel and sniffer technology. Corks drop into individual stainless steel trays and are gently warmed as the carousel spins the trays around toward the detection sniffer station. After the corks are warmed, two small ports open, revealing jets that blast the corks with nitrogen gas to lift any TCA off the cork. If TCA is detected, the machine will indicate the cork is tainted. It's the next step that's proving challenging, Mowe said. Right now technicians need to stop the machine and clean the chamber to prevent any false positive results during the next cycle. Once a cleaning cycle can be added to the machine, Mowe expects a fully automated process that could run through any cork order to ensure it's taint free. "We feel this is the future. This is something we've been working on for some time and believe in," he said. "This is not something that's 10 years out." The new twist-off 'Helix' At the Vinexpo tradeshow in Bordeaux, France, this June, Amorim and OwensIllinois (O-I), one of the largest glass container producers, announced the results of a collaboration to develop the new Helix cork closure. The effort has spanned more than four years and cost Custom QC and 'unfounded rumors' The new 'Helix' closure is a collaboration between Amorim Group and O-I Glass. nearly $7 million. While similar in appearance to a "T-top" or bar-top closure, the Helix is a cork that twists off from a custom-designed bottle with grooves on the interior of the neck. The companies say the closure is intended for "popular premium" wines priced between $7 and $12, and which are made to be opened soon after release. O-I and Amorim claim to have conducted extensive market research in France, the U.K., U.S. and China, and the Helix scored high with consumers who liked that the cork can be used to reseal the wine and still offered the distinctive "pop" when pulled out of the bottle. The companies claim wines aged for 24 months with the Helix did not taste different than control wines. The corks also performed well in bottles lying horizontal for 30 days at temperatures around 95° Fahrenheit. The cork is expected to be available in European markets first and is priced slightly higher than standard natural corks. In their announcement, O-I and Amorim said wineries would also need to modify their bottling lines for the new closure. Corks as an anticounterfeit device? O ne potential application of Cork Supply's new system for analyzing the internal structure of corks could be in the developing field of anti-counterfeiting measures. The company's research director, Ana Cristina Mesquita, said each cork is so different and distinct they could be traced. If the provenance of a wine is called into question, Cork Supply could conceivably trace an individual cork back through the supply chain to confirm that the cork was indeed part of a specific lot that was purchased by the winery and used during bottling. "This technology can be a way to work against fraud," she said. "Each individual cork has its fingerprint." A.A. 58 W in e s & V i ne s AU G U ST 20 13 Cork producer M.A. Silva reports it just completed building a 400-square-foot expansion to the lab at its production facility in Santa Rosa, Calif. The company also hired an assistant lab manager and installed a new infrared spectrometer to analyze cork coatings. Better coating analysis helps the company fine-tune coating formulas to ensure good insertion, extraction and sealing performance, said chief operations officer Michael Riel. The added equipment and staff is intended to help the company offer clients custom QC protocols on their cork selections. "Our market approach is to partner with each of our customers while providing them with the highest level of quality and customer service," Riel said. "To maintain the ability to do so we continually invest into technologies and people that enable us to evolve, improve and offer more. Our goal is to be much more than a commodity supplier, and quality control and product technology investments create a real benefit for our customers." Diam Closures, distributed in the United States by G3, unveiled an expanded range of permeability options for its 1, 3 and 5 closures. The company claims it has three patents pending for its standardized process to measure closure permeability. And in a sign of the competitive nature of the closure segment, the French company released a statement early this year denouncing what it called "unfounded rumors" being circulated by one its competitors seeking to curtail the firm's growing sales. "The unfounded rumors are false, and they were spread by our competitors due to Diam's strong success," said Dominique Tourneix, Diam Bouchage's CEO. "Diam products do meet both EU and FDA certification standards." Diam is part of the Oeneo group that also includes Seguin Moreau cooperage. More than half of the company's 6,000 clients are in Europe, and 10% are in the United States. The company employs a unique process using supercritical carbon dioxide to essentially volatize and flush TCA and other contaminants out of the raw cork granulate it uses to form its molded closures. The process is similar to how caffeine is pulled out of coffee. The granulate is tested by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry before and after being treated with supercritical CO2, and the finished closures are also tested to ensure they meet required dimensions and functionality. When the products

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