Nomacorc plans Chinese research

Synthetic cork manufacturer Nomacorc is planning to start a major research programme in China.

The programme, which will be a joint operation with a Chinese academic institution, will be on the same lines as the programmes Nomacorc already runs with University of California Davis, Geisenheim, the Wine Australian Research Institute and other bodies.

The research will aim to understand how oxygen affects the development of wine in the bottle, Malcolm Thompson, global vice president of marketing and innovation told Decanter.com.

It will be geared towards the Chinese wine market and specific to wines produced in China, he said.

‘There will be a regional component and it will be varietal specific, and it will involve an academic partner of the calibre of the AWRI.’

Nomacorc already has a strategic partnership with Cofco, the Chinese government-run foodstuffs company which owns China’s biggest wine producer Great Wall – as well as Chateau de Viaud in Bordeaux and Biscottes winery in Chile.

Nomacorc helps Cofco with winery and bottling operations, as well as supplying Chinese producers, including Great Wall, with closures.

These are manufactured at Nomacorc’s plant in Yantai on the Shandong peninsula, the heart of the Chinese wine producing region. The plant opened in 2007.

‘We supply China with a series of products that represents our global range,’ Thompson said. ‘We don’t customise the products for China.’

Wu Fei, chairman of the wines and spirits division of Cofco, is No 8 in the Decanter Power List 2011.

Written by Adam Lechmere