Where was the high tech wine cork which does not smell of cork created?
Marzia Morganti Tempestini tells us about Diam Bouchage where the innovative wine corks and other high-tech items were created as well as her visit to the Michelin star rated restaurant in Caceres which has a wine cellar containing 70,000 bottles.
Marzia Morganti and corks
Together with a group of journalists we were invited to the Diam Bouchage company, the huge world famous producer of high-tech corks. The visit to the cork factory in San Vicente in Alcantara in Spain was very interesting. It creates an almost surreal scene, after acres and acres of countryside and forests with the odd house dotted here and there, the Bouchage Diam factory suddenly appears in the distance, like a Cathedral in the middle of a desert. It is a stunning sight even before you enter it but it is the technology which is really impressive.
They have created a process, which has been developed over the last 10 years, which allows them to extract 140 molecules from the cork, including trichloroanisole, the infamous TCA that causes the smell of sawdust in wine. This leads to a new generation of wine corks which are entirely free of odours. Wine producers can breathe a sigh of relief, no longer will they have to replace bottles which have been tainted by the cork, but above all it will remove all the bad impressions which a corked bottle of wine leaves with customers and restaurant owners.
Currently they are producing over 1 billion corks a year but this is sure to increase. So all in all, a huge success!
Our visit had even more pleasant surprises in store: our visit to the small town of Caceres, set in the heart of Estramadura, which is a Unesco Heritage site. Here there is a Michelin starred restaurant called ‘Atrium’ which has a wine cellar which contains 70 thousand bottles of wine many of which are amongst the most prestigious in the world. The wine list is fantastic but the Italian wines do not have the lions share, indeed, there are only about seventy labels on the list.
Among the Tuscan wines listed there was the Sassicaia and three Brunello
Atrium Restaurant Chateau d'Yquem
from Col d’ Orcia, three Rosso di Montalcino – also Col d’ Orcia and some other bottles from Paradiso di Manfredi and Villa Poggio Salvi. The prices were not really affordable, the lists showed the price of 310 euros for the Col d’ Orcia 1989 double magnum, 1997 Vintage for 60 euros, and the Poggio al Vento 1995 reserve for 110 euros, the prices for the Rosso di Montalcino wines were more reasonable and ranged from 40 to 60 euros.
Brought to you by Marzia Morganti