Tapcork’s logo is a “D?”
Also, what kind of closure is it? According to the oxidized burgs wiki, they went to Diam 30 in 2014 – did they go away from this closure? When and why, if so?
I believe the core Diam patent for cleansing cork of TCA and other wine-tainting compounds expired a little while ago (Sep 2020), so there have been several new companies entering the agglomerated cork business. Diam corks are priced at a premium, and it seems others have come in to undercut them. With rising costs these past few years, it’s no surprise producers would look to gain back some lost margin by exploring other cork options.
I see other patents filed that haven’t expired, so it’s very likely DIAM still has some unique treatments and technologies for their corks that they can still protect.
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true but if the warranty is 2 years, that’s shorter than 30 years . . . and as I said, it certainly correlates.
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Is the warranty transferable?
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True, but they are guaranteeing the very specific OTR for that period. They aren’t saying the cork will only last for 2 or 3 years. The cork could breakdown over time and allow an increase in oxygen transfer, but it logically dictates that would likely happen slowly as opposed to a catastrophic failure at X years. So a DIAM 5 might allow some percentage more OTR as originally rated at 20 years. But wouldn’t you expect the same thing out of natural cork? Someone would have to do some tests on corks pulled out of the wild to see how both really develop.
Trefinos cork company using the brand name “cwine” has been utilizing supercritical co2 just as diam since 2009 (diam was 2003 or 2004). Diam sued Trefinos for patent infringement and Trefinos countersued citing their patent was invalid. After a couple years of bickering, they both dropped their suits and agreed each could continue selling.
In 2020 Amorim Cork launched xpur which is their version of micro agglo treated with supercritical Co2. Most cork producers have a micro agglo that is treated with different variations of temperature and steam and are also affective against tca. However, supercritical co2 is a superior treatment method (removes not just tca - makes cork totally neutral) but a much more expensive process.
Maglocork is name of producer that uses a singular D. Don’t know anything about them. It’s likely they buy their micro agglo from another producer.
If the retail price for your grand cru wines is creeping up on $2000, and you can’t figure out a way to pay for brand name closures, this is a business strategy issue.
If the producer saw all that, it would be great. Unfortunately, it’s a small fraction. WK has a lot of good posts calling this out in recent days. My comment was in regard to all producers considering closure costs, not just Leflaive.
Have other high end producers adopted “name brand DIAM” and then later switched to “generic” for cost reasons?
Tons of wineries have used diam and switched to another producer after trialing against diam. Very common.
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Had a $35 2017 Château Carbonnieux Blanc that uses a DIAM 30 fwiw.