A bottle of sparkling wine will retain its fizz for several days after opening with a new resealable closure.
Closure company Zork has launched the product in Australia and New Zealand, with three major companies including Constellation interested in the product.
Constellation Wines Australia has confirmed it is participating in trials.
‘Is our company’s position to continually undertake trials across our viticultural, winemaking and packaging areas,’ a spokesman said. ‘At this stage, our Zork trials are not complete and there will be no change to our sparkling wine cork closures.’
The bottle pops like a traditional closure when opened. The polyethylene cap is then pushed back on to the bottle to retain the wine’s sparkle and freshness.
Initial tests by the Australian Wine and Research Institute show it can prolong the life of a sparkling wine after opening and ‘can provide equivalent or superior performance to traditional cork’.
Zork CEO Dave Pahl told decanter.com, ‘We have three major multinational drinks companies interested in the product. They have been doing technical trials for the past 12 months.’
Within 10 years, it aims to have a 10% share of the 2bn sparkling closure market.
The company plans to launch in Europe within six months and hopes to have three manufacturing plants on the continent in three years’ time.
Written by Rebecca Gibb
