First Bottling – Choosing a Cork

Close corks

 

OK…if you have been following along we have a bottle, capsule and a label.  How about the cork? Below you will find 4 grades of cork with the best on the left.  Amazingly the price goes up about 25% as you increase the grade of the cork.

As Joanne has famously said…why stop now.  We picked the top grade of natural cork from ACI Cork USA, Inc.  Why…it looks better and should provide a better seal with less air pockets.  I’m hoping that it will also have less potential for “cork taint”.

Lastly, why even use cork.  In New Zealand and Australia, where we recently spent 4 weeks, all the Pinot is bottled with screw caps.  I had originally wanted glass corks.  Well, it all came down to simplicity and cost.  With the volumes we had I could afford the tools to do screw caps and they don’t have the tradition of real cork.  We had access to a small corking tool. Glass corks were more expensive and we found them difficult to remove. Lastly, with cork we got to put our logo on each and everyone of them so after you enjoy our wine you will have a moment!

4 corks

box corks

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