Award-winning Australian Winemakers Trial Glass Stopper for Wines

International award-winning winemakers, Stephen and Prue Henschke are the first Australian producers to trial a new glass closure for their wines, as part of a $1 M high technology makeover to the bottling facilties at their 100ha estate at Keyneton in the Eden Valley wine region.

The innovative glass closure combines the reliability of screw cap with more of the romance of cork. "It’s functional - designed to perform perfectly one hundred percent of the time - but it’s also aesthetically appealing," says winemaker, Stephen Henschke.
 
As the fifth generation of the famous Henschke winemaking family, today’s owners Stephen and Prue are committed to maintaining the best of their heritage and searching out new directions for the future. With their joint expertise - Stephen in winemaking and Prue in viticulture - they are highly regarded spokespersons for research and quality winemaking techniques and have led the way in winemaking innovations. The introduction of this designer glass closure will be just the latest in their quest for the best of the old and new.
 
The Henschke’s discovered the glass closure in Germany in 2004, when Stephen presented a paper on ‘Red Wine Quality’ at the Stuttgart Intervitis, one of the largest wine conventions in the world. They are familiar with advances in German technology, as both studied at the Geisenheim Wine Institute, where as students in the mid 1970 s they saw the introduction and application of screw cap technology.
 
With renewed commitment to investigate leading technologies, the Henschke’s returned to Australia and following an ISO Certified Quality Management System, commissioned their impressive new bottling line, which features a mono-block design to allow for the use of cork, screw cap and the new glass closures.
 
Designed by Alcoa, the closure, which looks like a decorative decanter stopper, won the prize for innovation at 2004 Stuttgart Intervitis. The design includes a glass stopper with a food grade polymer seal, which fits a specially designed bottle -guaranteeing an airtight closure equivalent to a screw cap. Once the stopper is in place an aluminum capsule is placed over it which protects the glass stopper and provides the seal of authenticity.
 
Stephen Henschke says, "In addition to the advantages of avoiding the increasing problems of cork related faults like cork taint (TCA spoilage), leakage and random oxidation, the glass closure is instantly attractive, costs about the same as the highest grade cork and has been designed to value-add the quality performance currently obtained with a screwcap."
 
Already, Lufthansa has endorsed the stoppers for all wines to be served on their airlines.
 
Henschke plan to carry out further research to assess early acceptance of the stopper. So far signs are promising – if the new closure guarantees the quality of the wine while putting some romance back into opening the bottle - it will be a perfect compromise of old and new!