Coated wine corks preserve good taste. A nanotechnological product against cork taint.

For wine drinkers, it’s often a great disappointment when the evening’s fine wine has a musty, mouldy taste. For vintners, this is a global problem that cannot be solved by switching to glass or plastic corks. This issue is known as cork taint. The Saarland-based company Nanopool is now offering an innovative solution to the cork problem for the first time.

According to estimates from the EU Commission, the Europe-wide damage caused by musty cork taint in wine amounts to about 500 million euros a year. Both vintners and consumers alike fear the so-called “cork taint”. The main culprit of the classic musty cork smell is identified as 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA). This compound is extremely odour-intensive and just a few billionths of a gram per litre of air are enough to spoil the good taste of the wine. Both the life cycle of the cork closure and the wine itself can trigger this musty smell. For many years, the wine industry has been looking for solutions. However, neither screw caps nor glass or plastic corks have managed to establish themselves so far.

Nanopool, a company from Saarland, now offers a simple yet ingenious solution. The company has succeeded in developing an ultra-thin layer that is applied to the cork surface before corking. The nanolayer works in two ways. Firstly, it kills certain types of mould that cause the cork smell. Secondly, it immobilises phenol and chloroanisole compounds that have already formed during the cork production process before corking, preventing their extraction into the wine.

Regarding the reliability of this method, Ralf Jürgens, the Senior Engineer at Nanopool GmbH, refers to numerous studies: “We have carried out microbiological tests and studies at accredited institutes, all of which confirm the antimicrobial effect of the nanopool coating.” The coatings are easy to apply and can be used in any cork production or by vintners and bottlers.

Sascha Schwindt, the managing director of the company, expressly points out the food safety of the coating: “The product naturally meets the requirements for food safety and has no impact on the maturation and taste of the wine. The layer is invisible and cannot be felt. The texture of the cork is in no way altered. For the wine drinker, a refined cork is indistinguishable.” Studies have shown that all the technical requirements of the bottler, such as tightness, pressing force, tensile strength, etc., are not affected by the coating and thus there are no changes in processing.

Thus, Nanopool GmbH provides the answer to the wine industry’s years-long search for alternatives to natural cork that meet the quality standards and aesthetic expectations of wine consumers.