Diam gets thumbs up

Published: 12 May, 2009

New World winemakers are increasingly rejecting natural cork and synthetics in favour of screwcaps and Diam, a seminar at this week's London International Wine Fair has revealed.

A panel of four leading winemakers at this year's LIWF closures debate championed technical cork Diam and screwcap closures. Linley Schultz, chief winemaker at Distell said: "Diam has been a great product and we have not had a single Diam-related complaint. I do have a question of what it will look like in 10-15 years time. If we did know what it looked like in 20 years time, it would be a winner."

John Worontschak, winemaking consultant, agreed: "I think it's a pretty ideal closure. With natural cork, there's still TCA, random oxidation, scalping, general inconsistency, and it's indefensible.

A representative from cork producer Amorim defended the natural closure. "The cork industry has changed a lot in the past 10 years. We have made huge improvement and we are proud to say we have high performance products. TCA is not a problem any more. Cork is the future of the closures industry."

Malcolm Thompson, vice president innovation and marketing, Nomacorc, added: The real debate now is which closure provides the best oxygen transmission rate and there's nobody better than us to that that."

The event was sponsored by Diam owners, Oeneo Bouchage. No European winemakers were able to participate on the panel.

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