So disappointed you get when you pick up a good wine from the cellar to enjoy on a special occasion and you find that the wine is corked! But luckily, much has happened to reduce the proportion of corks with defects, which occur due to the chemical compound TCA (trichloroanisole), both in the traditional cork industry and especially with the special process used for the DIAM corks. The fact that this is a “big business” is evidenced by the fact that 1.8 billion is produced annually of the safe DIAM cork. Then there are alternatives like plastic cork, screw cap and glass cork but emotionally there is nothing that replaces a “real” cork and its special sound when it is pulled out of the bottle!

As an alternative material to the cork from the bark of the oak tree, there is already a “green” cork developed by Nomacorc produced from polyethylene pellets extracted from crushed sugar canes. Already today, 800 million bottles have been sealed with this cork, which also has the advantage of looking like a “real” cork.

But what is going on now is that Nomacorc intends to extract polyethylene from the press residues from wine production, i.e. from skins, seeds, and stems! Nomacorc hopes to be able to launch this green product next year. We must hope that there will be enough “marc” left to produce grappa and marc!

Source: La Revue du Vin de France