France-based wine and spirits closure producer Sabate has announced new R&D developments for removing TCA and precursors in cork closures.
Sabate said it has identified and produced good results with a technique using supercritical CO2 (carbon dioxide) to extract undesirable compounds from cork.
"It may be premature at this point to completely dismiss the future viability of cork closures," said Sabate Diosos Closure Division CEO Pascal Fougere. "Winemakers have legitimate concerns about tainted wine, so Sabate, as a responsible partner in the wine industry, has made this initiative, to remove one potential source of taint, its top priority. We are not sitting on the sidelines and relying on the romance of our product to win the day."
The 63-year old French company, which supplies a diverse line of cork-based closures to thousands of winery clients worldwide, said the CO2 supercritical fluid extraction prototype process is environmentally friendly, hazard-free and maintains the positive chemical and physical properties of the cork.
Sabate, in order to potentially develop future products with this new process, said it would share its research with customers and seek market feedback. Additionally, Sabate said it is working to improve the management of closure permeability to provide controlled and customised quantities of oxygen to the wine.
"There is much debate these days about cork products, but we know there are various causes of taint in wine, including random oxidation," said Fougere. "Sabate is seeking to provide closure solutions meeting the diverse needs of the worldwide wine market. Conversations with our customers and other wine industry stakeholders convince us that earning true credibility on this difficult issue requires a sustained, open, informative dialogue, and that is exactly what we are doing."
Sabate is the closure division of the Sabate Diosos Group, a global leader in supplying value-added products to winemakers worldwide. The Group is the world's largest barrel supplier and one of the world's largest closure suppliers serving the wine marketplace.