Screw caps? Environmentally unfriendly.
Plastic corks? Tacky and unsustainable.
Diam corks? Expensive.
Vin-o-Lok? Very expensive.
Wine producers face a real dilemma when it comes to choosing a closure for their wines.
Now there is a new kid on the block: Nomacorc Green Line.
Baron Longo, an Alto Adige winery with an environmental ethos, is among the first to ditch screw caps for what it believes are environmentally more friendly Nomacorc Green Line closures.
These new corks from the Vinventions company are made of natural, vegetable biopolymers derived from sugar cane, a rapidly renewable raw material.
"The new closures have a much better carbon footprint than aluminium tops and are 100% recyclable. In addition, cork taint or corked wine caused by TCA will be a thing of the past," say the Baron Longo team.
"For reasons of ecology and sustainability, we will gradually say goodbye to the aluminium screw caps previously used our Terroir wine range."
The first to use the new system will be the Baron Longo Felix Anton white and Felix Anton red, as well as the Sauvignon Blanc Urgestein. As from the 2022 vintage Baron Longo will also switch its Felix Anton rosé and Sichlburg, to the new cork closures.
"We are still using up the screw caps we have in stock, but we are not purchasing new ones. By switching to the new corks, we will save on some 50,000 aluminium screw caps a year - all in line with the sustainability concept to which we are committed as a biodynamic winery."
Nomacorc Green Line bills itself as "a new "category" of closures using what it dubs as PlantCorc™, derived from sustainable, renewable sugarcane-based raw materials.
It says the closures ensure wine preservation up to 25 years, are TCA- and fault-free, offer consistent and controlled CO2 ingress and easy opening and reinsertion.
It touts renewable plant-based materials, low carbon footprint, recyclability, use of renewable energy and minimum waste.
Vinventions has over 550 employees with seven production sites located in the United States, Belgium, Germany, Argentina, China, France and South Africa. It produces over 2.7 billion closures annually across the spectrum.
My personal preference would remain screwcaps. Convenient and efficient.
Hi Winsor, would argue that a screwcap is just as easy to recycle. Simply in the scrap metal or council recycle bin.
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