Dear Patrick Stuart (wine contributor),
I’m on the communications’ team at Nomacorc, the world’s largest manufacturer of synthetic wine closures. I came across your article published on September 7 and wanted to share with you some information about Nomacorc.
You are definitely correct that although the number of TCA incidents has reduced over the past years due to screenings, there is still about 5.5% fault rate for TCA according to the International Wine Challenge (which did a five-year closure study based on the IWSC competitions).
In regards to those hard to remove, synthetic closures that you found in your Italian wines, I believe you experienced the plastic injection moulded corks that are primarily made in Italy. I wanted to let you know that Nomacorc synthetic closures are not that. We are actually comprised using a co-extrusion method that contains a foam inner core with a plastic outer skin that helps with the removal and reinsertion of the cork.
You also mentioned Italian wines being faulty due to oxidation from the cork. Our Select Series closure line was developed using our oxygen management research and offer different oxygen ingress rates through the closure and eliminates faults like TCA, oxidation and reduction (which continue to be a problem in both natural, technical, and screw cap closures).
Whitney Rigsbee
USA
