Amcor gives winemakers room to breathe

Amcor has extended its range of Stelvin Inside breathable screw cap liners for wine bottles, introducing two new variants to the family at this week's WineTech trade show in Sydney.

The two new additions to the company's vintage range provide a greater variety of oxygen barrier properties to wine makers.

“Originally, we had two types of liners on the market to control the oxygen transmission rate to wine bottles, but now we have four to give winemakers a real alternative for their operations,” sales director for Amcor's Europe-based Flexibles business, Andres del Solar, told PKN at WineTech.

“It gives winemakers more possibilities in terms of controlling and fine-tuning the oxygen transmission rate to suit their particular blends of wine.

“For example, for reds you might want to allow more oxygen to blend with the tannins, while with white you want to protect more, because it is more susceptible to oxygen.

“But that's just a rough guideline. Every winemaker has their own preference, and what we have done is give them more choice for their closures to fit those preferences.”

Developed in partnership with French wine technology specialist MGJ, all the liners in the range are free of polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC) to allay concerns about chloride in wine packaging.

“We did that to anticipate widespread concerns, and possible legislation ruling out chlorine materials in such applications in the future,” del Solar said.

The launch of the new liners at WineTech follows on their introduction in March this year in the United States, and in April in Europe.

“That completes our three major wine making markets, but in many ways Australia and New Zealand have the greatest market potential, both being more advanced than in some of the traditional wine markets in their use of screw cap closures,” del Solar said.