Corticeira Amorim, the world's biggest
maker of wine corks, saw sales decline each year from
2000 through 2004 as consumers turned up their noses
at pinot noirs with the bouquet of a damp dog. Amorim
responded by modernizing plants to cut production costs
as he searched for a cure.
Amorim's process, which steams out compounds
caused by a naturally occurring fungus, has helped lower
the industrywide incidence of cork taint to less than
1 percent of wine bottles produced, from as much as
5 percent, said Sónia Baldeira, an analyst at
Caixa Banco de Investimento in Lisbon..
Portugal produces 54 percent of the world's
cork, or about 185,000 tons a year. Oeneo, a French
rival that has developed its own taint-removal process,
sniffs at Amorim's claim. Instead, Oeneo says that it
has eliminated the problem caused by the chemical trichloroanisole,
or TCA, once and for all.
Carlos de Jesús, the Corticeira
Amorim spokesman, said that the Portuguese company's
process is the only one that combines "preventive
and curative measures."
Both cork makers are now turning their
efforts to halting a slide in sales to wineries.
About 78 percent, or 14 billion, of the
18 billion wine "closures" each year are sealed
with cork. "If you went back 10 years, you'd probably
find that it was 95 percent cork,"
The race to find a way to produce a fungus-free
natural cork stopper and one cheap enough to compete
with alternatives has cost Corticeira Amorim about €6
million a year in research spending since 2000.
The effort paid off with a reduction
in taint of as much as 90 percent and has led some wine
producers in South Africa and Chile to start using cork
again.
Complete report at www.iht.com
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