[Growwine] Wine Bottle Closures

[Sébastien Mailloux]

I think there will never be a concensus about the best closures.  For example, I really love the Nomacorc synthetic closures and some, like Anthony, do not like them.  I have use many thousand of the Classic long chamfered Nomacorc over the last 6 years and I never had a single leaker.  I think that most closures type will have pros and cons and you have to find what suit your needs the best.  For example, I can't justify a high quality Natural cork because we are selling our wines rather cheap and I don't want to have TCA or corked wines issues.  I have tried many synthetic closures ( SupremeCork, NeoCork, Nucork and Nomacorc ) and the best for me in the lot is the Nomacorc.  

They are always in the top three synthetics closures of any study I have read. There are four different type of Nomacorc : Light ( 12 months ), Smart ( 24 months ), Classic ( 36 months ) and the Premium ( 60 months ).  You can get them in short or long version and chamfered or non-chamfered type.  

There is two problematic with the Nomacorc that I have found : 1) They do a complete seal in few seconds only which tend to compress the air over the surface of the wine if you don't have a vacuum corker.  This can lead to premature oxydation.  Two remedies for this : 1) Use a vacuum corker 2) Slightly increase the free So2 at bottling to compensate.   The second problem I have seen is the lipping where the outside material of the cork slightly fold back when you insert it.  What cause this is not the cork but the corker.  You can also see this with natural cork but it's just less apparent.  A solution is to use the chamfered type but it's not perfect solution...just better.  The perfect solution is to use an electric corker.  It might work with a pneumatic but electric are better because they are faster to insert the cork and this is where the problem happen.  This problem is only a visual one and does not affect the sealing capacity.  

I have done lot's of reading and research on the Nomacorc and a little also on the other synthetics closures.  I have talk with few technical specialists from Nomacorc to find theses answers.  

Sébastien Mailloux
Winemaker
Domaine & Vins Gélinas
Vignoble St-Nicholas
Vignoble Prémont
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: CanadaVintage 
  To: growwine at littlefatwino.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 7:56 PM
  Subject: Re: [Growwine] Wine Bottle Closures


  I do not stand behind Noma Corc.  They leak, trap air and are down right hated in the restaurant industry by sommeliers.

  Anthony Carone
  www.caronewines.com




    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: J & A Baker 
    To: Growwine 
    Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 5:39 AM
    Subject: [Growwine] Wine Bottle Closures


    I’m looking for some feedback on the above.

     

    After 26 years of using regular corks, with some nominal / occasional loss, I switched to Noma (synthetic) Corks.

     

    Now I am not certain that it was a good decision so I am hopeful of receiving some comments on others observations.  I have not experienced serious problems but I do have some concerns about freshness and possible oxidation.  I know that a western US winery undertook a 4 year study on closures and determined that screw caps were the best.  In fact, they even selected a particular type of screw cap to use in their winery.  Unfortunately, screw caps do not appear to be a reasonable option for home winemakers.

     

    As a part of that comment they alluded to the fact that synthetic corks might be TOO tight, locking in an amount of oxygen when it is corked.  Maybe my concern is unwarranted but observations of others would be appreciated.

     

    Many thanks,

     

    Alan Baker



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