I don’t think that’s quite right. My understanding is that Diam 10 and 30 both had the same oxygen transfer rate (OTR), which was lowest among the Diam range.
I use the past tense there because it seems this year that Diam is offering multiple versions of Diam 10 and 30 closures that have different OTR. These new versions permit more oxygen transfer than the original versions.
So going forward, it seems like we should be even more careful not to read too much into the number printed in the side of a Diam closure. Depending on the versions used, a Diam 30 might allow more oxygen transfer than a Diam 5.
This is new news indeed: Diam is sold through G3 in the U.S. (I think exclusively) and there is not one bit of information on the G3 website about Diam’s ITRs and OTRs; and tech sheets are not available…. And did you notice that Diam and Trefinos use different OTR metrics making it very difficult to compare side-by-side? (D uses micrograms/year, T uses microliters per day —> one microgram = 0.001 microliters. D has 2 OTR choices, T has 3 OTR choices…)
confusing indeed! the secret here is that DIAM is a great closure because of the treatment method used for the TCA and other volatile compound extraction (supercritical Co2).
DIAM just launched in the USA versions that gives choices for permeability and are claiming to be trailblazers doing such. However, CWINE was launched originally in 2012 with supercritcal Co2 and three levels of permeability so that is nothing “new” or trailblazing.
The truth is all micro agglo stoppers are going to be very close in IOR OTR etc. This is due to the way the stoppers are made. DIAM and CWINE are above the others because of the treatment method of the cork material.
disclosure - My company is the importer and manufacturer of CWINE
In terms of market share, not quite. Amorim produces & sells more treated micro agglo stoppers than DIAM by a mile and if that was the only product they sold, their brand name would be much greater.
In terms of recognition you are correct - Diam is like the brand “kleenex”. Without a doubt they built a great brand name but there is equally as good tissue for blowing your nose.
With regard to corked wine under Diam, it should be noted that lots of wine can be corked in the winery, before bottling. This happened to a number of famous California producers some years ago, so winemakers here are very aware of the problem, but at least in Italy they seem much less conscious of it. We aren’t a huge importer and we’ve had a number of bottlings affected in the cellar.
The first time it happened to us with a wine bottled under Diam, I was horrified; I thought my faith in Diam was misplaced. But then we found that every bottle was the same, and realized it wasn’t the closure at all.
I can’t remember which thread, but someone said they ordered a bottle of water at a restaurant and it was corked. Another poster said they were cutting cabbage and it was corked.
I was at a winery many (15) years ago, and said that their bottling equipment smelled corked. Subsequently tasted two new release wines in the tasting room, and you know what…
As has been noted above I believe wood preservatives can cause problems. (The chemical culprit there might be TBA, which apparently smells somewhat like TCA, and is detected by humans at similarly tiny levels.) The cases we’ve seen have been due to producers using chlorinated cleaning agents (like bleach or chlorinated TSP) to clean floors or tanks, since TCA comes from the interaction between chlorine and micro-organisms.
We have also discovered that the juniper berries used to make gin can be a potent source of TCA. We import artisanal spirits too, and have already had a number of batches of gin that were bad, to the point that we ask people to test for TCA before we buy a new batch. The first gin we tested was at 80 parts per trillion of TCA, which would be an astronomically high number in wine.
Other products affected: baby carrots, as noted, presumably from rinsing in tap-water; potatoes; coffee beans, and doubtless others.
The story I heard was that it was a barrel rack sealer that was being used in France by a number of wineries and that it actually wasn’t TCA, but smelled very similar. Some '90s Tempiers also had this, but unlike TCA this chemical tends to decrease with airing.
