Diam stoppers

[Ted Judd]

I have used Diam for more than three years with no failures or tainted wines.

[David M. Bueker]

Interesting data point. Know of others?

[Steve Edmunds]

Small sample number so far, but I've done three wines in the past couple of years under Diam, and have no failures to report.

[Philip Aron]

Can somebody advise , re the cost contribution of a good quality cork closure to a bottle of wine that retails for about 20 USA dollars.Assuming place of purchase is NYC.

Assume that the winery produces over 10 million bottles per year.

[David M. Bueker]

10 million bottles per year? Going for the big boys eh?

You can do the math yourself based on cork costs. I personally know a producer in Germany who spends about 1 Euro per cork (last updated was summer 2008). Of course corks are available for far less, sometimes just 25 cents or less.

[michael dietrich]

I sell wine for a living. I probably taste an average of about 80 wines per week. I remember when I had a winemaker by several years ago from New Zealand who talked about the Diam compared to Stelvin. He said the Diam claimed maybe 1 bottle per million to have TCA. I normally am at about 10% of regular corks show TCA effects. It does seem to be dropping a little here recently. I have also kept track of the wines that have Diam corks. You can tell because the word Diam is printed on the cork. I am approaching 300 bottles and no TCA. I just remembered that it was the winemaker from Gravitas who first told me about Diams. There are other corks that look like a Diam but are not. I am glad to see another good choice out there. I have heard a few comments as to how wines will age in the long term. We shall see.

[Hoke]

I've been doing a little investigation into DIAM, and I have to say the information supporting the closure is pretty convincing thus far. And the reports I've been receiving as to usage (a la Steve's experiences) have been promising as well. I think it's a closure worth watching.

(Mind you, I still prefer the screwcap, since the DIAM still requires a corckscrew and has not as yet been fully proven. )

[Steve Slatcher]

I have had no problems with Diam closures. But I wouldn't expect problems as they are specifically engineered to work. They are quite expensive though aren't they?

Hoke - one advantage they have over stelvin is that the seal is not damged if the top of the bottle is knocked. But as far as know no great longevity claims are made for Diam. Wonder what happens when they get too old...?

[Hoke]

Steve, damage to the top of a Stelvin-capped bottle is not one of my primary concerns; I think such damage is minimal and unlikely to apply to enough bottles to matter.

No, longevity has not been proven as yet, but I'm confident that those tests will be much more promising than what we saw with synthetics---primarily because the DIAM still has the inherent properties of cork. Therefore, I believe the DIAM will more closely approximate the cork failure/success rate. Which of course means that the same problems of cork will afflict DIAM---uncontrolled and unpredictable oxygen ingress, potential oxidation, likely cork failure after 10-20 years, etc.

DIAM is an improved stopper over cork, I think, but it is for those who adhere closely to habit and pattern---those who cannot accept cosmetic change as well as functional change. Once you get over the habitual acceptance that a closure need be some sort of plug or stopper inserted into the neck of a bottle of glass, and conceive that other types of containers and closure methods are potentially more efficient for doing the job for which they are designed, then there's no necessity any longer for DIAM.

I think cork and 'inserted plug' closures are considerably less efficient, more time consuming, more prone to failure, more difficult to open, and significantly LESS aesthetically appealling than screcaps (in that they corks don't do what they promise to do as well as screwcaps do).