Natural cork and bottle variation

I am astonished that Wines and Vines would print a misleading and erroneous endorsement of a controversial product in your magazine as if it were editorial coverage of the facts.

This violates every standard of journalistic ethics, and makes me wonder about your goals for the future of your magazine. If your goal is to provide accurate news to the wine industry, your editorial endorsement of the promotional piece by Cellucork is an embarrassment.

Not only is the article full of misinformation and errors, but you made no attempt to balance the presentation by seeking the expertise of any of the numerous technically capable members of the wine industry who would contradict much of the propaganda promulgated by Cellucork.

After all, while Mr. Martin has chosen to switch his production to plastic stoppers, it is important to note that many other wineries have tried the plastic stoppers and switched BACK to natural cork. Why?

Because they have a clearer understanding of the issues involved. Those who contend that all bottle variation is due to bad cork are condemned to live a life of endless frustration. They simply don't understand the situation.

The Cork Quality Council has played a key role in helping the wine industry understand the issues and factors that affect bottle variation, and our educational materials and industry seminars have done much to help wineries eliminate many of the potential causes of bottle variation.

At these seminars, we have asked a number of leading experts in the wine industry to present their views on bottle variation and quality control. And what has become increasingly clear is that wineries with proficient quality control procedures and techniques and professionally designed and managed bottling lines are reporting total incidence of all bottle variation of below 1%.

Perhaps a future article in Wines & Vines could begin to present some of the information that has come out of these and other seminars--THAT would be a service to the wine industry. (Nothing to date-Ed.)

In fact, current research indicates that if a winery reports more than 2% totalbottle variation, it would do well to inspect every level of its production. Such problems can be caused by contaminated barrels, contaminated filters, oxygen pick-up in the bottling line, improper bottling procedures, contamination of the glass, improper storage of use of the corks, or any number of other possibilities. Until a winery can eliminate these variables to identify the problem, changing from one kind of stopper to another, or form one cork supplier to another, will have little impact on the results.

At the Cork Quality Council, we have developed Recommended Bottling Procedures to help wineries understand this situation, and we are working with Dr. Ken Fugelsang to develop a Bottle Variation Trouble-Shooting Guide to help wineries identify the sources of their bottle variation problems.

It is fascinating to note that once Mr. Martin experienced bottle variation problems, he replaced his entire bottling line--and then placed the blame fully on the corks!

We continue to see frequent documented cases of TCA "cork tiant" incidences in everything from water bottled in plastic bottles, beer bottled with plastic lined screw caps, and even raisin! It is critical to understand that TCA can form in virtually any bottling and packaging line, whether or not that line uses cork stoppers. Certainly, TCA can be found in corks. But its common occurrence in these other industries clealry indicates that we must look beyond the cork alone if we are to eliminate the problem. We must take a long, hard look at every aspect of quality control and bottling procedures.

As for the misinformation in the promotional piece by Cellucork, I must correct many of the statements. My only concern is where to begin.

We agree with Mr. Martin that a 3% quality problem is unacceptable, but absolutely disagree that current cork suppliers provide corks with such high incidences of contamination. Our experience with wineries who match our own rigorous quality control inspection on their corks find incidences well below 2%, and most report figures well below 1%. In fact, cork quality has shown such improvement that we have had some difficulty finding contaminated corks for research we would like to conduct!

(Mr. Martin should also note that a 3% figure is equivalent to one bad egg out of three dozen, rather than the two dozen he suggests.)

His assertion that natural corks need three days to make a tight seal is ridiculous. Our own Recommended Bottling Practices suggest the same 24 hours that Mr. Martin cites for plastic stoppers, and we have excellent evidence that in even shorter time periods, natural cork makes a significantly BETTER seal than plastic stoppers.

If Mr. Martin's winery had leakage problems that reached 10% of the bottling run, we strongly suggest that improper bottling techniques are to blame. In our research, the most likely candidates for this would be an incorrectly functioning vacuum at the corking head or too low a temperature for the wine. We know of no other winery in the world reporting this incidence of leakers where such problems are not obvious.

Ironically, research by some of our client wineries has shown that plastic stoppers are significantly less resistant to leakage due to temperature variation after bottling.

(Screw caps, on the other hand, cannot be bottled by drawing a vacuum, which immediately raises concerns about oxygen pick-up and bottle variation in these wines.)

And while Mr. Martin claims enthusiasm for shipping and storing his wine upright, our own research shows that fully 25-35% of the naturl cork sealed wines shipped from the Napa Valley is shipped neck up, with complete satisfaction by the participating wineries. There seems to be little differences between the two closures on his point.

However, Mr. Martin notes that this wines sealed with plastic stoppers have been criticized as being "too fresh." Not surprisingly, most wine makers cite the importance of a natural cork to the natural and desirable aging process of wine. The use of a plastic stopper would clearly restrict or even eliminate this critical process.

And plastic stoppers are more difficult to remove. We have clear evidence, both from research by our client wineries, as well as hands-on experience by knowledgeable journalists, that the plastic stoppers are more difficult to remove from the bottle, and extremely difficult with a two prong cork puller. We know of many wineries, including onw which received some unpleasant attention from the San Francisco Chronicle, that have received many complaints from their customers about this problem. It astonished us that Mr. Martin claims his winery has received none.

Mr. Martin is to be congratulated for his efforts at correcting the quality control and bottling line procedures at his winery to reduce bottle variation. That he replaced so many aspects of this operation speak of his commitment to solving the problems he encountered.

That he now chooses to blame all of his previous problems on natural cork stoppers is both misleading and misguided. The professional experience of large numbers of quality wineries in the United States directly contradicts his claim.

It is our hope that Mr. Martin's experiments with plastic stoppers will shed light on many of the issues we all face concerning bottle variation in the wine industry. But until he can take a more scientific and realistic approach to the factors involved, his experimetns will yield nothing but meanignless propaganda.

And it is your duty as an editor to encourage a search for truth and accuracy that will help the wine industry solve the problem of bottle variation.

COPYRIGHT 1993 Hiaring Company
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group