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Researchers from the Comité Champagne have conducted successful trials with oxygen-free corks. Their aim is to prevent oxygen from entering the wine from the corks. This is because sparkling wine corks consist of about 80 percent air. When they are pressed into the bottle neck, their volume decreases and the air pressure in the cork cells increases. This causes the air contained in the cells to diffuse into the wine. Whether made of natural cork or microagglomerate, the phenomenon is almost identical for all corks.
Benoît Villedey, deputy head of the wine department of the Comité Champagne, explains: "Within three months of the bottles being sealed, the cork releases 2.5 to three milligrams of oxygen into the wine. This sudden influx of oxygen can lead to undesirable oxidative ageing."
Even the complete removal of oxygen from the neck of the bottle by so-called jetting does not change this. Jetting takes place after degorging, immediately before corking. A micro-droplet of sulphurous water is injected into the neck of the bottle, causing the wine to foam. The rising foam pushes the air out of the bottle neck and ensures an almost oxygen-free headspace after corking.
Benoît Villedey and his team have been experimenting with the oxygen-free corks for three years. In order to inertise the corks - i.e. to prevent them from being deoxygenated - they were stored for three months in a tank filled with nitrogen at overpressure. The gas volume was renewed once a week. The corks treated in this way only began to fill with oxygen again six hours after they had been removed from the nitrogenous atmosphere. The physical properties remained completely intact. Benoît Villedey is convinced that the use of inerted corks in combination with jetting technology could make it possible for winemakers to dispense with sulphurous acid during shipping dosage. The Comité Champagne is now hoping for the help of cork producers and bottling equipment manufacturers to develop this discovery to the point of mass production. "That would be a second revolution," says Benoît Villedey.
(ru / Source: Vitisphère/Comité Champagne; Photo: 123rf.com)