Winemakers – can you talk a little bit about selecting the particular corks you use to seal your craft? I’ve always been curious about how someone would go about selecting these – how much is cost an issue, how many do you consider before selection, what sort of testing/research do you do to aid your choice, how extensively do yo uconsider an alternative closure, etc.
It may seem like a mundane topic but there are only a few choices you can make that affect this beverage we so enjoy as much as the quality of the stopper.
Well, for myself, we started with agglomerate corks back in 01 because we were hand corking. The agglomerates/composites were the only corks that would handle the pressure behind the corks after slamming them in by hand. The other reason was, Amorim cork company had just pattened a new(then) process of taking all of the pieces left over from punching naturals out of thier squares, chipping them and running them through a steam distilation that, they claimed got rid of 99.7% of all TCA molocules. Then they adhere all the pieces back together (using a food grade cellulose gum/glue) and put a natural disk(also steam distilled) on either side, so the pieces are essentially just “filler”. I liked this not only for the ROSA processing(way less insidense of TCA), but because it felt more environmentally responsible utilizing a “waste product” from punching naturals.
We continued to use the “Twin Top” agglomerates through '06, as we were really happy with the extremely low insidence of cork taint(like 1 in 3-400). With the 07 vintage we switched to natural, “A” grade corks, partially as a brand image move, but also Amorim started employing a similar process of removing TCA from thier line of naturals.
This was a pretty costly move as it increased the cost of our corks from $.11 per to over $.60. The new corks are beautiful, and I feel much better about them, pulling them in front of people who care. We will see.
Not in the industry but we keep all the corks, and this past weekend, my wife and I were trying to glue a cork board together… just for fun.
One thing we noted… the bottles are pretty standard right? why are the corks SO different?
some are nearly 50% longer than others, some are short, some are fat, some are thin.
I wish everyone used the same sized cork, so cork boards are easier to make!
I saw the coolest cork ever a few months ago. One of our buyers brought it back from Italy to show to us. It came from one the wines by Vigneti Massa. It was a plastic cork, but had tiny holes in the cork… looked like scaffolding… that’s the best way I can describe it and have never seen anything of its like. For a cork it was pretty amazing. I should have taken a picture of it. The cork cost approx $1.
I was hoping to bottle viognier with a screw top and reds with a traditional cork, but for the kind of label I’m using the different closures create additional costs so that idea is out the window for now.
Instead, I will use natural cork from Gültig for both reds and whites.
I also use Ganau. They are very, very expensive I’ve spent over $1 a cork for their top grade. I’ve had three TCA reports in three years, one by me and it’s all been on the same bottling. I selected them based on their reputation for low TCA issues, and high quality. Cork vs Synthetic was one of the hardest calls I made in packaging, and once I decided on cork I wanted to go with the best I could get.
They are actually one of my top vendors. Each year I give all my vendors a letter grade, fire the D’s and F’s, tell the C’s I’m expecting better and will replace them and keep the A’s and B’s. Ganau has always been an A. They send schwag (hats and shirts) too
Glad I searched, I was going to ask John why he picked his corks!
FYI, Mike Hirby mentioned that he pays $0.85 for his 49mm grade A corks for his Relic wines, but the price goes WAY up beyond that. Realm pays $1.85 for a 54mm cork from the same supplier.
John, it’s interesting that you think the composites have a much lower incidence of TCA, thanks for your comments.
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