Press Release - Fairfield, CA – Winemakers from California to Pennsylvania are choosing Nanocork™ as their wine closure of choice because it offers a cost-effective and eco-friendly means to retain fresh fruit flavours and a long finish in white, rosé, and non-reductive red wines without concern about TCA contamination. An alternative to synthetic closures and screwcap, ACI Cork USA offers the innovative nanocork to the US market where it is currently used by Winterhawk, Roland Rosario, Big White House and Tamanend Wineries. The big Portuguese wine company, Avelada, uses nanocork for its vinho verde.

Nanocork features the Bacchus barrier, a specially developed coating with an oxygen transfer barrier, which is adhered to the top and tail of an all-natural colmated cork. “Nano” quantities of oxygen are consistently delivered to wines via the barrier coating, and this feature provides better shelf life for aromatic, fresh and delicate wines than does screw cap and plastic corks.

“I decided to use nanocork on my ’08 vintage because it is truly a breakthrough product that gave me all the benefits I needed for my artisanal wines,” said Martha Rueca-Gustafsson, winemaker and owner of Roland Rosasio Cellars, Copperopolis, CA in the Calaveras AVA. “Now I am bottling all of my red wines with nanocork, and a Calaveras County viognier too. What really convinced me at first was ACI’s excellent service and nanocork’s appealing prices, but I’m happy I tried nanocork. There have been no instances of flawed wines or TCA (“cork taint”) and I have a real cork on my wines, not screw cap or plastic.”
Nanocork is ideal for wines that require low oxygen transfer, and wines with a low reduction potential. Nanocork’s O? permeability is the same as a high quality cork, about 0.0005 cc’s per day. Once bonded to the cork using a highly moisture-resistant polymer, the barrier material used on nanocork is completely inert. The film material is thermoformable so it molds perfectly to cork ends, thus completely covering the curved cork edge and obviating any irregularities.

Because nanocork closures use colmated corks, the environmental footprint for nanocork is excellent: this product is one way to use as much as possible of the bark of the Cork oak, a completely renewable and sustainable tree. Nanocork is a closure that is recyclable, has a low-carbon footprint compared to synthetic closures. Other advantages of nanocork are improvement in seal between cork and bottle, elimination of ‘off’ flavors attributed to cork, strengthening of the cork end, and reduction in cork dust. Nanocork is ready for immediate use in bottling after the shipping bag of nanocorks is opened; it is consistent from cork to cork, and nanocork requires no further treatment.

Nanocork was developed by UK innovation company Bacchus Wine Closures in partnership with Alvaro Coelho & Irmãos (ACI), the second largest cork producer in the world. ACI has been testing this technology since 2005 both in-house and with customers before commercializing the product in late 2009. The Nanocork technology will also work well on sparkling wine corks and corks for spirits.

For more information on Roland Rosario wines, contact Martha Rueca-Gustafsson at coffeebnqn@comcast.net or call (707) 428-6977. http://www.rolandrosariocellars.com/

ABOUT OUR COMPANY:
ACI CORK USA, headquartered in Fairfield, California USA, is a subsidiary of Portuguese-headquartered Àlvaro Coelho & Irmãos, SA. ACI, the world’s second largest producer of natural cork wine stoppers, was founded in 1996 by three brothers with over 40 years experience in the cork industry, and has grown to encompass 15 factories that support sales in every winemaking country of the world. The company uses world class technology to produce over a billion corks annually, including its market-leading all-natural cork wine stopper, the new innovative nanocork™, and several types of “technical” corks produced via an agglomeration process: Naturtop™ (two end disc cork), Fizz™ (sparkling wine cork), and Aglica™ (produced by agglomeration of cork microgranules). ACI also produces Bartop™ used for fortified wines such as Port, distilled spirits, vinegars and oils. After custom finishing each cork to exacting customer specifications in the modern 30,000 sq ft Fairfield CA plant, ACI CORK USA provides corks to more than 400 US and Canadian winemakers.