Pieropan drops Classico status for screwcap
Wednesday 22 July
One of Soave’s best-known producers, Pieropan, is following in the footsteps of Venetian neighbour Allegrini, bottling its Classico level wine under screwcap and forsaking its ‘Classico’ status.
Under Italian law both Valpolicella producer Allegrini and Soave’s Pieropan were forbidden from bottling their Classico wines under screwcap.
However, the Pieropan family have decided to drop Classico so they can move to stelvin with the 2008 vintage.
“The UK, the US and Australia will take their entire allocation of 2008 under screwcap,” said Andrea Pieropan. “We’ve taken this step to improve the quality of the wine drunk by the final consumer. Our wine is unoaked, and its charm lies in its perfume and elegance, so we need a closure that captures these characters in the bottle.”
Liberty Wines imports both producers’ wines and managing director David Gleave MW has been a vocal proponent of bottling Italian wines under screwcap for some time. I’m sure his close relationship with these two Veneto producers and his views on dragging Italian wine law into the 21st century will have played a part in their decision.
He said: “In our opinion, Italy’s tardiness in adapting this new technology is having an adverse effect on the competitiveness of their wines in the U.K. market. Over the past 30 years the image of Italian wine has been transformed, largely due to the willingness of many producers to embrace new technology and techniques in response to market trends. Yet these same producers, who see the benefits of adopting screwcaps for their wines, are now being held back by the law.”
While these two renowned producers are likely to suffer from the loss of their Classico status, lesser-known Italian producers are unlikely to be abandon their Classico status readily. Classico and cork still mean quality in Italy. Consumers in the UK, Australia and New Zealand now readily accept screwcaps but other markets, including the US, still see screwcaps as fit only for lower quality wines. While the switch by these top producers and others including Laroche in Chablis will improve its image, it still has a long way to go.
A chat with Supremecorq
Monday 1 June
I met up with Simon Waller of Supremecorq for a quick coffee to discuss the latest happenings in the synthetics closure world. The UK trade isn’t too keen on them but in the US they enjoy greater consumer acceptance than screwcaps.
The permeability of synthetics has been the biggest concern for the wine industry since the Australian Wine and Research Institute published its biggest-ever closures study in 2001, showing synthetics allowed much higher oxygen ingress compared with screwcaps and natural cork. Since then, things have improved but Waller feels the synthetics are still tarnished by the 2001 study. ‘Because of the poor results from the 2001 trial, people made their mind up about synthetics,’ he admitted over an iced latte.
He was keen to show me studies from Geisenheim and Bordeaux-based Sarco. The results show natural cork (the type of natural cork specified) and Supremecorq’s X2 brand have similar permeabilities (this is done by comparing free sulphur dioxide levels in wine. The faster they drop, the higher the permeability of the closure and the faster a wine will age - and oxidize).
Things must have improved since 2001 and they are clearly doing something right. Fetzer switched its Valley Oaks range to the X2 last December and, Waller reveals a major US company (and it’s not Blossom Hill) is set to announce its conversion from natural cork to the X2.
‘We are still looking at reducing the permeability of the closure. All we can is produce good products and back it up with results,’ he added.
Rival synthetic producer Nomacorc is currently concentrating its efforts on understanding oxygen transmission rates (OTR) with a view to bringing out closures tailor-made for particularly wine types. Waller is not convinced by this direction. ‘The OTR angle is useful and valid but most wineries don’t have a clue about what OTR they want or have. I just don’t think it’s practical.’
The company sell around 500 million closures each year; Nomacorc sells close to two billion. There are around 17.5 billion closures sold each year.
Geeky closures news
Tuesday 12 May
Winemakers, take note: It’s not just your choice of closure that contributes to a wine’s development. If your bottling isn’t up to scratch, your wines will develop faster.
Researchers at Geisenheim Research Centre in Germany found that if bottling processes are not managed properly, it causes irreversible damage to a wine and its post-bottling development.
Dr. Stéphane Vidal, global director of enology for Nomacorc, which took part in the study, said: “Ultimately, we found that if bottling conditions are well-managed, then oxygen transfer rates (OTRs) through the closure influences wine evolution in a more pronounced manner”.
Geisenheim research also showed the headspace also represents a significant amount of oxygen that contributes to wine evolution.
“Our results show that headspace oxygen, which has largely been ignored by the industry, is a very critical factor impacting wine development and more specifically, a wine’s oxidation resistance influencing shelf-life performance,” said Dr. Rainer Jung at Geisenheim.