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Australia is a large country - Margaret River is further from the Hunter Valley than Jerez in Spain is from Tokaji in Hungary - so, despite the distinctive national approach to wine, Australian wines are not all the same. The wines of Margaret River and of the Hunter Valley differ as much as sherry and tokay do. The three most important wine-producing states are South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. As well as bulk production, they each have specific premium wine regions.
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INDUSTRY PRESS ARCHIVES |
Home : News : Industry Press Archives |
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Major study confirms Amorim cork as a top closure for wine | |
 Jul 24 2001 | Author: Winepros |
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| © Amorim |
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A major trial of wine closures has confirmed natural corks and Amorim Twin Top corks among the very best closures for short-term cellaring of wine.
Undertaken by the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI), the two-year trial rated cork as best or close to the best for ease of extraction, the preservation of fruit characters in the wine and low incidences of leakage, oxidation and taint.
The trial compared 14 commonly-used wine closures, including screw-caps and a range of synthetic stoppers. Cork was represented in the trial by Amorim Twin Top technical cork and reference 2 and 3 natural corks.
Mr Antonio Amorim, the chairman of Corticeira Amorim, the world's leading cork producer, described the findings as 'a big boost for cork' and said they were consistent with comparative studies undertaken by researchers at Excell Laboratories in France and Geisenheim Research Institute in Germany.
'These studies confirm our view that cork is a benign or neutral closure that can actually assist the wine to mature and develop complexity during bottle cellaring,' he said.
Mr Amorim said Twin Top had performed brilliantly as a short-term closure, whereas some synthetics, while highly consistent in performance, appeared to either adversely affect the wine or inhibit the bottle-ageing process.
Amorim's head of R&D, Prof Miguel Cabral, noted that reference 2 and 3 natural corks and Amorim Twin Top corks finished in the top four in a field of 14 wine closures examined in the Australian trial.
'This study is being conducted under close-to-industry conditions and the first results clearly show that cork can outperform most of its competitors on almost all parameters, including retention of free sulphur dioxide (SO2), which protects the wine from oxidation and aldehyde,' he said.
Prof Cabral also felt cork's favourable performance, compared with other closures, would become increasingly evident as the experiment continued.
'Many of the plastic closures are likely to fall further behind on a range of parameters, and an off-aroma that emerged with screw-caps after 18 months appears to be worsening, according to the AWRI.'
On the key parameter of free sulphur dioxide (SO2), which protects wine from oxidation, Twin Top was the highest ranked closure that had no significant adverse impact on the wine. Two other closures that had scored better than Twin Top on SO2 were shown to impart musty taints or rubber-like aromas to the wine.
Amorim Twin Top technical cork is now one of the world's most popular corks, with global sales likely to exceed 800 million in 2001. The cork comprises a high-grade natural cork disk at either end of a shank made from cork granules and a food-grade adhesive.
Designed for short to medium cellaring, Twin Top is an inexpensive closure that preserves the strong consumer preference for cork, while making a more efficient use of a valuable resource.
Mr Amorim said the AWRI findings were especially heartening because the study had not used corks made with the most recent innovations at Amorim. These included the introduction last year of a new boiling process incorporating the CONVEX system for removing volatile contaminants from the cork bark.
However, despite cork's strong showing in the AWRI trial, he said Amorim would not relax its commitment to improving the technical performance of its wine closures. The Portuguese-based company currently spends about $US 6 million a year on R&D and product improvement.
'The AWRI results are evidence of the hard work we have done in the last few years but the lesson we have learnt from the wine industry is that the demands of our customers do not stand still-so nor can our efforts to meet those demands,' he said.
For further information, contact:
Francisco Brito Evangelista (351) 22 747 5589
Brett Wright or Chris Santos (613) 9654 3522 |
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