Though this is not a part of the production process for the DIAM closure for the USA market, Oeno is continuing to treat some of the 'cork flour' with steam cleaning to extract volatiles and TCA. They are not the only company to use this process, I believe that many of the large cork companies are using this, particularly on their technical closures, such as 1+1 and twin tops. Oeno is mostly using this closure for the spirits industry, to be made into bar-tops - one peculiar feature of TCA is that it is more sensory active in low-alcohol beverages, such as wine. Seems that it is most noticeable at between 4% to roughly 11% alcohol, and then the alcohol has a masking effect. So for malt whisky at 40% alcohol, or even Port wine at 19%, the closure choice is more forgiving. For wine, particularly more delicate styles; champagne, belgian beer closed with a cork - these products are all at particular risk of taint by TCA.
Dominic stated that the steam cleaning process can reduce TCA to below 2.0 ng/l (that is less than two parts in a trillion!) which should be around the threshold for sensory impact for a sensitive individual. They sample continuously during the steam treatment, and if a lot does not pass their testing, it is sent back to be run through the treatment process again. In this way, they can guarantee results below 2.0 ppt, but as Dominic says, "that is not enough. We are still selling TCA, so we had to progress from this."
From here, we started to walk over to the most recent part of the plant.
"Now, we leave the medieval behind and enter the space age!"
More photos from the
DIAM plant at my flickr page.
No comments:
Post a Comment