Australian top-end wineries will be among the first to benefit from Amorim's new technology that enables individual natural cork stoppers to be screened for the chemical compound TCA.
Amorim has achieved a major technological breakthrough to become the world’s first cork producer to deliver natural cork stoppers to winemakers with a non-detectable TCA guarantee – which means if any TCA remains in a cork it is below the detection threshold level of 0.5 nanograms/litre.
TCA is a naturally forming chemical compound that is a problem in the packaged food and beverage industries.
Known as NDtech, the technology greatly enhances Amorim’s quality control measures by screening individual cork stoppers on the production line to eliminate the risk of corks contaminated with 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) reaching winemakers.
“Until now, no cork producer has been able to guarantee a quality control system for natural cork stoppers that screens corks individually,” Amorim’s research and development director Dr Miguel Cabral said.
“We've been working to achieve this goal for several years. Now we can examine an individual cork using sophisticated gas chromatography in just seconds, making the technology practical on a major industrial scale.”
Previously, gas chromatography examination took up to 14 minutes, making it impossible to use on production lines.
Instead, Amorim applied the technology in laboratory-controlled batch testing as part of its quality control measures for the 4.2 billion corks it produces each year — and at the same time worked to improve the technology so it could be used in production.
The development of the super-fast NDtech follows a five-year €10 million research and development investment by Amorim and a partnership with a British company specialising in gas chromatography.
NDtech can detect any cork with more than 0.5 nanograms of TCA per litre (parts per trillion), and these corks are removed from the production line automatically.
NDtech will initially be applied to Amorim’s top-end natural cork stoppers used on some of the world’s most valuable wine brands.
Australian wineries are among the first to be offered corks that have undergone NDtech screening.
“The initial response from winemakers has been as positive as we had anticipated, especially given the important role that premium packaging has for fine wine exports to crucial markets such as the US and China,” Amorim Australasia’s national sales and marketing manager Tim Stead said.
“This groundbreaking technology presents Australian winemakers with an opportunity to harness the unique benefits of sustainable natural cork knowing that Amorim has examined and guarantees each individual stopper.
“The introduction of NDtech after several years of development again highlights Amorim’s tenacious commitment to continually building upon its well-established and industry-leading quality control measures.”
Two of the world’s leading wine industry research facilities — Hochschule Geisenheim University and The Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) — have been engaged to independently validate the performance of NDtech.
“Amorim’s NDtech has been validated by Geisenheim and we are confident AWRI validation will soon follow, which will make it the only TCA-specific technology to receive validation from both organisations,” said Cabral.
“Independent validations of this calibre underline the magnitude of this technological breakthrough.”
