The Somm Journal

Dec 2015-Jan 2016

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50 { THE SOMM JOURNAL } DECEMBER/JANUARY 2015/2016 { the cutting edge } "I have not spent much time in factories, and have always related to the more romantic side of the business," confides Maximilian Kast of Fearrington House Inn & Restaurant in Pittsboro, NC, who initially encountered Nomacorc when opening different bottles of wine for clients. "When I went to the facility, they had us tasting a number of wines [with different closures]. It had me looking at clo - sures, not from a sommelier's perspective, but from a perspective of a winemaker who wanted to make sure that the flavor would not be affected for the end consumer." Nomacorc was born out of an avid wine collector's need to know how and why natural wood cork could also be a wine's undoing. The company, founded by family entrepreneur Marc Noël in 1999, spun out from sister company Nomaco, producers of extruded foam products. His wine collector father, Ger t, was always frustrated by cork taint, or TCA. There rose the impetus to extrude something that would look like a cork but be highly engineered and technically advanced. In the late 90s, Marc and Nomacorc's research and develop - ment team started playing around with that idea. Thousands of trials later, they perfected and sold their first cork to the industry. Today, they offer a whole portfolio of engineered corks that allow winemakers to control the amount of oxygen that enters a wine. Select Bio, their latest innovation made with plant-based materials derived from neutral sugarcane, is the world's first zero carbon footprint closure. "I am very impressed that Nomacorc is a huge player in recy - cling, and is so dedicated to creating a product that's a recyclable and sustainable solution to not only do the job [of containing and protecting wine reliably] but doing it more than once," says Master Sommelier Michael Jordan. "I also appreciate that the company is heavily involved in sponsoring wine events such as competitions, food and wine festivals and wine education events throughout the country. They are becoming a great resource for the wine com - munity at large." "Our inner sealed closure, compared to a screwcap, main- Concern for the end consumer: Maximilian Kast, Wine Director at Fearrington House Inn & Restaurant in Pittsboro, NC, visited the Nomacorc facility to taste-test Nomacorc against other closures. Michael Jordan, MS, calls Nomacorc "a great resource for the wine community at large." PHOTO: NEIL BOYD PHOTO: MARGARET SOSS

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