Amorim in Portugal is the world’s largest producer of wine cork stoppers. They sell 5.4 billion cork stoppers a year, both “natural” corks, which are extracted from a single cork strip, and “technical” corks, which are agglomerated corks from cork granules.
Amorim has developed a new production process so that from now on they will be able to guarantee that all their corks are free from TCA, the molecule responsible for cork defects. Production should be in full swing by the beginning of 2021. The technical details have not yet been published as the process is being patented.
Amorim already has a process called NDTech that guarantees TCA-free corks, but it is only used for the highest quality corks and comes with a higher price tag. This new process applies to all corks, at no extra cost.
The Diam cork, made by a French company, is a guaranteed TCA-free cork that has been on the market for about ten years. But Diam is a technical cork. Amorim’s new technology applies to natural corks, the cork that many wine producers prefer to use.
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