Put a Cork In It!

The debate between “cork vs. screwcap” still continues in the wine industry. And there’s lots of subtle issues underlying the humble closure we appreciative wine consumers take for granted.

Did you know that wine makers have to actually make the wine differently if the closure is going to be a screwcap?

Do you know the claimed carbon footprint difference between sustainable cork crops and the manufacture of screwcaps? These questions are just the tip of the iceberg lettuce.
For those who are interested here’s the basic information about cork and a link (at end of article) to a great site that promotes the sustainable farming of cork.
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In the 1600s a Benedictine monk called Dom Perignon observed that wooden stoppers wrapped in oil-soaked rags used to seal his bottles of sparkling wine often popped out, and so he replaced them with the conical pieces of cork to seal his bottles of sparkling wine.

Cork soon become essential for wine bottling. The world's first cork stopper factory opened in around 1750, in Anguine (Spain). The best cork comes from Portugal, and the country is the world's leading cork producer. The bark of mature cork trees is harvested just once every nine years.

Cork trees are not regarded mature enough for bark harvesting until they are at least 25 years old, and the bark itself is not suitable for wine corks until the third harvest. A cork tree will yield 13 to 18 useful harvests in its lifetime. The processing of cork oak bark includes repeated sorting, boiling, punching, slicing, polishing, washing, drying, finishing and wax coating, and takes about a year.

The cork’s cell-like structure (there are around 800 million cells in a single wine cork) makes it best sealing material for wine bottles. Cork’s biggest disadvantage is the trichloroanisole contamination that is being aggressively addressed by the cork industry.

Fun facts: Recently cork has also been used in rocket technology due to its fire resistance.
And a recycled screwcap chair is bound to be uncomfortable.

And this is a great cork promotion website: www.savemiguel.com

An Investment Headed for the Cellar!

Fine-Wiine Investing A Lot More Palatable in These Days of Market Turmoil

By Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- On a hot, sunny Friday here in September only days after the first Monday market meltdown, two well-heeled wine buyers battled each other at a private auction for the privilege of shattering a world-record price for a single case of 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild.

A Chinese buyer who flew in from Beijing for the Hart Davis Hart Co. auction won with a final bid of $54,970 -- a whopping $4,580.83 a bottle. At its release in 1984, a single bottle would have sold for roughly $100.

With the financial markets in turmoil, the sometimes lucrative market of fine wine may appeal to investors, but it's not as simple as stashing bottles in your basement. MarketWatch's Jennifer Waters reports from a Chicago wine auction.


A case of 1990 Romanee-Conti Domaine de la Romanee-Conti that was released at about $500 a bottle sold for $179,250, or $14,937.50 each. A case of 2000 Chateau Petrus was bought for $57,360, or $4,780 a bottle. At its release, the price was $750 a bottle.

Such dramatic price appreciation is not the norm for wine investments, but it does underscore how lucrative and resilient investing in fine wine can be -- particularly so at a time when market volatility is deflating 401(k) accounts and retirement nest eggs, and low interest rates are choking returns on cash and other investments.

"Historically blue-chip wine prices have risen but at a modest pace compared to some other investments," said Allan Frischman, a senior specialist at Hart Davis Hart. "Over the last couple of years these wines have gone up quite dramatically but it's hard to say how long that will keep up."

It's simple supply and demand that is driving up prices. There are scores of new wine drinkers, mostly in emerging economies such as China and Brazil but also in wine bastions like the U.S. and Europe.

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More than just a wine label!

New High-Tech Wine Labels Detect Temperature Fluctuations During Shipping

High-tech wine labels track travel temperatures, providing users with a temperature paper trail. Sultry weather can be hard on any traveler, and for wine it can be disastrous.

Spoilage in wine shipping, which haunts consumers, distributors and merchants, has become easily detectable. California's wine industry has begun using a temperature-sensitive label that for about two years had been confined to the food industry.

A high-tech shipping label now being used by some in the industry aims to warn customers if there's a chance they're getting cooked Cabernet.
The small label, programmed to reflect a band of temperatures, goes on bottles and packages. They are about the size of a pack of sugar and can be programmed for a range of temperatures and placed directly on the product or product packaging. The light flashes green if the product stays within specifications and if temperatures get too high or low, it flashes yellow. Information on exactly what temperatures the product reached and when can be downloaded via a portable reader into a computer spreadsheet. If there is a problem, the data show where it occurred, helpful in determining who's responsible.

Among those using the technology is WTN Services, a Napa-based shipper that has been offering the temperature monitor to customers of its retail brand Ambrosia, a wine catalog, and is now making it an option for other wineries shipping through WTN. The labels cost WTN customers $20 a box — the equivalent of 10 bottles of Two Buck Chuck, but a fraction of the cost of a case of $100-a-bottle Napa cab, Edwards notes.

Made by Boise-based PakSense Inc. and on the market for about two years, the temperature monitors had been primarily used by the food industry but lately have been finding a market in wine shipping as well, company spokeswoman Amy Childress said. Temperature control is key for wine. Heat speeds up aging, which may sound like a good idea but results in diminished flavor. If the bottles get too hot the wine is "cooked," which means it may taste flat or be otherwise flawed.

A low-tech warning sign is if the cork has been pushed up out of the bottle, but that doesn't necessarily mean spoiled wine. On the other hand, a bottle may look fine but be spoiled. In Napa, WTN Services, which both distributes wine and sells it directly to consumers under a program called Ambrosia, pronounces itself happy with the labels, which are made by an Idaho company called PakSense.

A California winery, the Schug Carneros Estate Winery in Sonoma, started putting PakSense labels on its shipments this year, using a type of label that is sent back by distributors and downloaded at the winery to provide trip details.

On the consumer front, New Yorker Reynold Weidenaar frequently orders wine, although he usually deals with the heat issue by buying in cooler months. He said he wasn't inclined to spring for an extra $20 for his shipments of moderately priced wine, but could see the appeal for a high-end collector. "We've had a few wines where you can see a little bit of leakage, a little bit of residue past the cork," Weidenaar said. "That's always a sign you better be nervous."

Edwards sees the labels as reassurance to people buying expensive wines that the shipping system is working. To avoid transit trauma, WTN has warehouses in California and New York so products don't have to travel too far. It uses packaging called the TemperEco-Pak, which is made of corrugated or pulp materials that control temperatures but can be recycled curbside.

WTN has been using the labels on Ambrosia shipments for about two months and "they've been blinking green upon delivery every time, so that's a good thing," Edwards said. (2.)
"It's been a great success," said Chris Edwards, vice president and general manager of WTN, which like Ambrosia is a subsidiary of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM Inc.

Sources: “New label detects temperature change during shipping,” Howard G Goldberg, Decanter; “High-tech wine labels track travel temperatures,” Daily News, September 22, 2008