“ Bye-bye to corked wine”

[jdaw1]

Bye-bye to corked wine:

Cork Supply: Natural corks with total sensory neutrality
Case closed! The Portuguese cork producer Cork Supply has succeeded in achieving a technical innovation that will eliminate any off-aromas or flavours that affect a wine. It is a revolution!

Two sequential, complex technical processes ensure that the natural corks from the Portuguese producer ‘Cork Supply’ no longer harbour any components of TCA (these are the compounds that spoil wine with the classic ‘corked’ aroma and flavour). This breakthrough has finally been achieved thanks to the tireless spirit for research and development of a German native who has dedicated his professional life to purity in wine.

In 1981, Jochen Michalski founded an import and distribution company called Cork Supply in the USA, to furnish the American wine industry with high quality corks. It was a good time for this, because with the development of iconic wines in the United States, the demand for top-quality bottle closures grew. Michalski’s company expanded rapidly, but above all, the quality fanatic was always desperate to find the best corks. For a good while, until he decided to go into production himself. With German thoroughness. Because only if each and every step – from harvesting the cork-oak bark to the finished cork – is placed under the strictest quality control can one be sure of producing a perfect cork for sophisticated wines. The passion for quality, innovation and research has always been top priority for Jochen Michalski and his companies.

The InnoCork Circuit

The technical innovation that Cork Supply now offers is a totally logical consequence of Jochen Michalski’s strategic approach. Working with his R&D team, Michalski – as the first cork producer worldwide – has developed a system with which he can guarantee natural corks free of TCA and with total sensory neutralities. And without any extra charge for the wine producer. The system works in a two-phase process:

1. PureCork

First, the corks are heated to 85°C in a twenty-four-hour cycle. Steam distillation removes TCA and other off-aromas.

2. InnoCork

Then following, in a one hour cycle, the corks are again heated to 65°C degrees using steam and an ethanol distillate, thereby removing any residual particles.

Perfection begins in the forest

Long before a cork undergoes the new InnoCork process, it must clear a number of hurdles. Just as in winegrowing, the quality with cork also begins in the great outdoors: constant monitoring of the cork oaks, intensive cooperation and consultation with partner companies, meticulous selection of the individual oak trees. To do this, one must walk for miles through the cork forests, where countless samples are taken and analyses performed before the first cork bark arrives at the production facility. From the forest to the finished product, these corks are subjected to multiple analytical, sensorial & visual tests. In total, Cork Supply conducts over half a million tests & inspections every year, which is well above the industry average.

Highest value worldwide

After the cork has gone through the InnoCork curcuit with the two technological processes InnoCork and PureCork, corks have shown to be 99,85% free of TCA and off-aromas. This is a figure that has never been achieved anywhere else in the world! All natural corks from Cork Supply are currently put through both technological processes, at no additional cost to the customer.

Smell for guarantee

If the value of 99.8% is not enough, one has the opportunity to go one step further: DS100 & DS100+ are the names of the processes that Cork Supply developed a few years ago. Every individual cork is tested and analyzed for TCA. Either by persons with hypersensitive olfactory organs (whose precision cannot be surpassed) in the case of DS100 or by means of a highly sensitive computer programme in the case of DS100+. After completing these procedures, Cork Supply issues the ‘Bottle Buy Back Guarantee’: if a defective cork is discovered, Cork Supply will purchase the bottle back for the retail release price of the bottle.

The Harv81 group

Thirty-nine years after the founding of Cork Supply, the company now has more than 500 employees in key wine countries such as Australia, South Africa, Portugal, Spain, US, Italy, France, China and Argentina. Even if the main focus is still on the production and distribution of cork, other fields of endeavour have now been added. Cork Supply opened the labelling company Studio Labels in Australia in 2007, and since 2008 the group has been successfully manufacturing oak casks with Tonnellerie Ô in the USA. Each of the three companies came into being out of the concept of customer service and has its own distinct identity. Since the beginning of 2020, the three
pillars – closures, casks & labels – have been consolidated under the name Harv81. True to their motto: Excellence on all levels.

[jdaw1]

Very interesting. I wonder whether Cork Supply would undertake to refund the cost of wine nonetheless corked?

[Glenn E.]

Very interesting. I wonder whether Cork Supply would undertake to refund the cost of wine nonetheless corked?

It seems so.

Cork Supply issues the ‘Bottle Buy Back Guarantee’: if a defective cork is discovered, Cork Supply will purchase the bottle back for the retail release price of the bottle.

[JacobH]

The heart of the technology appears to be 1) careful selection of raw material, 2) sterilisation with steam, and 3) further sterilisation with alcohol. This does raise the question as to why it isn't already standard practice for all premium wine corks since none of that seems terribly complex or esoteric.

[winesecretary]

Burgundy producers have been moving over to DIAM closures in droves in the past decade, even for the very top wines. The DIAM 30 means that they are even suitable for Grand Cru level wines. I can see why, politically, top port producers haven't done so yet, but I suspect there will be some eventually (perhaps when DIAM produce a 'DIAM 50'.

[JacobH]

That's interesting. I wonder if any shippers have done some experimentation with maturing bottles in their own cellars with alternative enclosures?

[winesecretary]

I am sure some of them are doing so. So long as the wine is free from TCA when it goes into bottle DIAM cuts the rate of corky wines to nil. Why wouldn't you want that win?

[In Burgundy, if you combine it with bottling with vaguely sensible amounts of free SO2, then DIAM also largely deals with the scandal of premox. Between them cork taint and premox affect about 15% of the bottles of burgundy I buy. To put it another way, 11 DIAM bottles are worth comfortably more than 12 bottled with natural cork.]

[Glenn E.]

That's interesting. I wonder if any shippers have done some experimentation with maturing bottles in their own cellars with alternative enclosures?

Quevedo released a 4-pack of 2014 (?) VP using different bottles and different enclosures. IIRC it's a normal bottle with cork, a dumpy bottle with cork, a normal bottle with screw cap, and a normal bottle with plastic "cork".

I bought 4 of them... one set of bottles was removed from the nice wood case and stored in my wine refrigerators at 55 F, one set is still in its nice wood case sitting on the floor in my wine room/study, one set was given to Roy to store in his walk-in cellar, and one set was given to Lisa and Vic to store in their wine room. Lisa and Vic's wine room is cooler than room temp, but is not as cool as cellar temp. They've now built a walk-in cellar in their garage, so I suspect that their set is now also in a controlled cellar.

[winesecretary]

@GEE - Oh of course, I remember JDaw1 talking about the language of the packaging of that case now. IVDP requires the use of natural or synthetic corks [which would allow DIAM corks I think] save for miniatures. So two of the four bottles in the Quevedo case are 'Port' and the other two are 'the same liquid with a different stopper' or some such.

[Glenn E.]

The two non-standard bottles are in fact labeled simply as "Silent Ruby" and the back label states "this bottle is part of an experiment using different closures and bottle formats." The normal and dumpy bottles with cork closures are labeled normally as 2014 Vintage Port.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Very interesting. I wonder whether Cork Supply would undertake to refund the cost of wine nonetheless corked?

Probably not since the cork is only one possible source of TCA. Poor winery hygiene is another major source.

[Axel P]

I think we can read a headline like this every other year now. Two years ago it was the new Amorim machine...

Lets keep the fingers crossed - though it does not help us with our stocks of 1945s, 1955s ...

[uncle tom]

A little reminder that if you do encounter a badly corked port bottle, please DO NOT chuck it down the sink.

Please brim fill a spare half bottle (or smaller, if the corked bottle was a half) with a different closure, and cellar properly for a couple of years. My trials so far are confirming my theory that TCA is only stable in the cork, and not in the body of the wine. After removing the source of taint, the wine clears itself.

I am now very keen to advance this experimentation to unfortified wines, so if you encounter a badly corked claret, please do the same - and report!

[winesecretary]

I have used the clingfilm trick on a Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon 1987 that was very badly corked. It wasn't totally clean two days later but it was more than merely drinkable, which it certainly wasn't on opening.