Bark Flogger Bites Back

By KYM WILSDON – Part of this correspondence was published in The Independent Weekly on 24 October 2008 - for the latest on cork stink, click on the cigar the bonnie lass above's got her fangs around. Photo from The Independent Weekly.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to request that the Independent Weekly publish a response to Philip White’s articles of 29 August titled Put a cork in it! and his recent follow-up piece of 8 October headed Cork comes unscrewed.

Amorim is keen to address a number of inaccuracies in Philip’s articles and some of the disparaging comments he has made about the company and natural cork.

It is particularly disappointing that Philip White does not appear to have made any effort to bring himself up-to-date with the latest developments in cork production and the substantial improvement that has been made in the performance of natural cork as a wine closure over the past decade. Such information is readily available on the internet.

We would be pleased if our response [following] could be published on the “thirst” page as well as on your website as was the case with Philip’s articles.

Kym Wilsdon
General Manager
Amorim Australasia Pty Ltd

To The Editor:

In reference to Philip White’s articles in the Independent Weekly on 29 August and more recently on 8 October, he might want to take some advice from one of his editor’s headlines and “Put a cork in it!” — at least until he has all the facts and brings himself up-to-date.

Amorim, the world’s leading natural cork producer, is not simply “a trader that ships cork bark”, but rather a publicly-listed global company that invests millions of dollars each year in research and development to enhance its products. These products are sold to some of the world’s most demanding and reputable organisations, including leaders in the aerospace, wine, sporting goods, heavy construction and fashion industries.

Rather than doing “sweaty deals”, Amorim prefers to establish long-term relationships with its customers, working in close consultation with them across a number of industry sectors worldwide. These are exactly the type of relationships Amorim enjoys with the world’s biggest wineries.

In terms of quality control, the cork industry has come a long way in the last 10 years. At Amorim, advanced production processes and stringent quality control measures supported by scientific analysis ensure any “vermin” are evicted well before our corks are delivered to a winemaker.

As for chlorine, it has not been used in cork production for well over a decade.

In his latest article, Philip White raises the issue of oxidation. Over hundreds of years cork has proven to be an adequate oxygen barrier in sealing billions of bottles of wine worldwide. The chemistry underlying the process of so-called ‘random oxidation’ in wine — with the obvious operative concept here being random instead of predictable — is unclear. However, a number of respected wine chemists, including Australia’s Dr John Casey and New Zealand’s Dr Alan Limmer, suggest the problem lies in bottling procedures, not with the closure.

Further research that looks at all variables including closure selection, bottling procedures and winemaking practices will contribute to fact-based knowledge. We need to move on from unsubstantiated statements that do not contribute to rational debate.

Members of the scientific community also undertake regular analysis on cork quality and results point to a significant improvement in recent years. The US-based Cork Quality Council, for example, shows an 80 per cent reduction in 2,4,6 trichloroanisole (commonly referred to as cork taint or TCA) levels in bulk cork imports since 2001. The average TCA count has dropped from 4.0 parts per trillion (ppt) several years ago to less than 1.0 ppt — well below sensory thresholds.

In addition, international expert Dr Pascal Chatonnet, a leading scientist and Bordeaux winemaker, stated in a 2007 conference in Napa that lab tests showed the incidence of cork related taint had declined from 4.9 per cent in 2003 to a mere 0.2 per cent in 2006.

On the issue of environmental sustainability, natural cork is streets ahead of alternative closures. That’s not just Amorim’s point of view, it is a fact supported by a number of independent life-cycle studies on the carbon footprint of wine closures. Not a big surprise when we are comparing the ultimate natural renewable product with oil-derived and aluminium products.

Apart from being renewable, recyclable and biodegradable, natural cork also plays an important role in carbon dioxide retention. In fact, it is estimated that the cork oak forests of the Mediterranean basin help offset a massive 10 million tonnes of CO2 every year, making them a significant carbon sink.

Industry attention is now turning to areas such as environmental performance and achieving value growth for Australian wines in the global market, as outlined in the strategy, Wine Australia: Directions to 2025. And these are areas where cork and Amorim can play a supportive role.

Today, we have great confidence in the technical performance of our products as well as our ability to support the industry in terms of environmental sustainability. We believe natural cork has a very bright future.

http://www.savemiguel.com/

COMMENTS:

1. HAROLD JOSEPH wrote

Amorim's Kym Wilsden's comments are fascinating.

There's the reference to billions of bottles of wine, then the concession that almost 5% of all the wine ever made anywhere in the world, up to and including 2003, and bottled under cork, was probably tainted by the product in question. Isn't that one bottle in 20? For all wine ever under cork? In terms of cases of 12, just so I understand, what exactly is a "mere" 0.2% of 2008 world wine production equivalent to? By my calculations, a 50,000 case winery loses 100 cases, a year, which they probably replace free, making it nearer to 200 cases, a year. Hope it's not Grange.

And I see there's still a problem getting eviction notices through to that pesky 1 ppt of the vermin population.

2. FIRSTY wrote

Well, Kym, that's fascinating. You fail to address Mr. White's suggestion that vendors of wine should not expect their customers to carry a special spanner or crank handle around just to get at the wine in the bottle. You don't realise that the lovely lass above has had to pull your bark plug out with her beautiful teeth!

You most noticeably fail to claim that since all your bark-cleansing experiments have been so successful, Coke and the medicine business haven't flocked back to cork. You just don't get it, do you. No. You have far too much at stake.

3. WHEEZER wrote

And tobacco doesn't cause lung cancer.

4. ANDREW GRAHAM wrote

'The Cork Quality Council is a nonprofit organization sponsored by selected wine cork suppliers.'

Very impartial then...
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Cork Wars: Australian Putsch Bottles Up Portuguese Rear

by PHILIP WHITE - This story appeared in The Independent Weekly as "Cork Comes Unscrewed" on 3 October 08

If I suddenly disappear, it’ll probably be the Portuguese. Silly buggers haven’t learnt much in our thirty years of warfare.

When José Lopez, of the Portuguese company, Amorim, opened fire on my recent spray against cork on The Independent Weekly website his first shot was a complete fizzer. Amorim’s the world’s biggest rubber and cork trader. José suggested I’m on the take from the screwcappers. Read The Olympics Were Corked in the September archive below and you’ll get the whole grim PR disaster.

The screwcappers have no reason to pay me. I support them for free. Screwcaps are a zillion percent better for keeping wine fresh, and my responsibility is to my readers, who deserve the best. So I hate cork. I hate its trichloranisole taint, which arises when the chlorine used to beautify and sanitise it reacts with microbes living naturally within it. And I dislike the way cork lets wine oxidise.

I’ve been this dangerously subversive since Coca Cola abandoned the cork wafers beneath its crown seals in the ’sixties. The pharmaceutical business soon followed suit. Corky soft drink and cough medicine may still be available in Portugal, but we’ve had none here for thirty years. Although Adelaideans smell TCA most times they take a shower, thanks probably to chlorination.

There was more incoming. Mai Nygaard lobbed a big grenade, but forgot to say she’s Business Development Manager of Normacorc. Then I thought they’d subbed Carlos the Jackal to wipe me, but it turned out to be Carlos de Jesus, José’s boss at Amorim, with a glib disclaimer. Perhaps he’d read up a touch of Australian libel law, or remembered that Amorim had for years employed Brian Croser (deputy chancellor of the University of Adelaide, which runs our wine education and research) and Len Evans, who was chairman of Croser’s Petaluma. Both were doyens of Australia’s wine show system for decades.

Some synthetic plugs are improvements on cork, but they still don’t get it. I want to carry a corkscrew/bottle opener everywhere about as much as a friggin crank handle. Even the Portuguese sardine industry worked out decades ago that they couldn’t expect fish lovers to carry a special tool around just to get the fish out of the tin. Aussie brewers were next to abandon the tool kit.

If you’re a blingster who just loves something clunky to jangle on your keys, I reckon the Diam compound cork is the best excuse to carry a mechanical tugger. In many thousands, I’ve found only a few Diams to be duds, and this was mainly due to irregularities in the bottle neck. Much stiffer than corks, Diam plugs sit tight, but don’t swell as well to fill depressions or seams within imperfect necks, so wine gets out and oxygen gets in. And they’re so hard to get off the worm, somebody should invent another gadget to help with that.

Of course TCA comes from sources other than corks. Pat Conlon’s new trams smelled corked when they were new, probably something to do with the aircon filters being sanitised with chlorine. The international entry lounge at Darwin airport was corked for thirty years, probably due to well-intentioned cleaners ensuring there was no tropical mould in the carpet. I always thought of Portugal when I came through. Some cheese is corky, too. Chlorine is used to sanitise cheese factories, and the French wrapping used to package white rind cheese is often bleached with chlorine compounds.

Cork lovers who preach about natural always being better should abandon the chlorine completely and leave the poor old cork trees alone. Respect the sacred ecology of the natural microfauna in the bark. Get straight back to the old wine skin. Pig is best. You seal ’em with a leather thong. I don’t know whether St. Matthew was a practising Jew, but remember his advice from God’s Word: “Neither do men put new wine into old skins: else the skins break, and the wine runneth out”.

Dislike overt sulphur? Anyone who seals a wine high in sulphur beneath screwcaps will soon learn they’re so effective they preserve faults as well as attributes. Want cork because you desire the sort of oxidation cork permits? Winemakers who seek oxidation should permit a little oxygen in the headspace below whichever closure they choose. But for me, polymerisation without oxidation, please. Screw it!

When me old China suggested Australia's "a proven failure as a wine producer, producing a soda kind of drink", I almost sympathised. Like China, we still use table grapes for wine production. And as for China being "the milenar culture which privileges natural material for the food product whose consumption is developing most in the last years is indeed a deep, intelligent one"? Mate, pull out the cork and have a nice big glass of milk, there's a dear.

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