Goodbye to corked wine?

Wine turned sour by a faulty cork could soon become a thing of the past as researchers perfect a new technique to end bottle spoilage.

By microwaving corks before they seal the liquid, scientists claim microorganisms cannot penetrate the wine and spoil it. Patents for the process, being developed by German winemakers with cork firms from Portugal and Spain, could be worth billions.

Each year wine worth hundreds of millions of pounds is turned undrinkable by corkage. In Italy this year, in the first case of its kind, Barolo producer Elio Altare is suing his cork producer after 27,000 bottles of his 1997 harvest were ruined by faulty corks. Even the cork industry does not dispute claims that between two and four per cent of all wine flaws are due to the quality of bottle-stoppers.

One noted German wine-maker said recently: "Cork taint has become a serious problem for the worldwide wine industry and current losses due to them are put at £1.6 billion annually."

There have been poor cork harvests in recent years in places such as Portugal where most of the world's 10 billion wine corks come from.

Consumers who may not follow the scientific processes involved are nevertheless only too aware of the assault on their palate when the promise of a fruity number turns into liquid muck.

This is due to trichlor-anisol, or TCA, which drinkers perceive as a musty taint.

The bacteria can be triggered when mould penetrates the bark still on the cork oak or after harvest when it is stored. Moisture and warmth before bottling causes and accelerates biological growths.

Boiling will not kill the fungus, nor does chlorine, which was used as a cork wash by many wine-sellers until it was proved that it also acts as a mould accelerant.

Now something called the Delfin Technique is set to change the world of wine forever.

The wine consortium, headed by Dr Buerklin Wolf vineyards in Germany's Mosel region, says that having corks microwaved before bottling kills the bacteria.

"If there is no mould then no TCA can form," said a spokesman for the Buerklin Wolf conglomerate, which has received funding from the European Union for the research. Its initial tests have proved entirely successful.