Jordan Wine Country Table - Vol. 16, 2021 - 22

3
Being able to
control the
oxygen level
inside the
bottle is a
winemaker's
dream.
Having the right amount of oxygen inside
the bottle is key in aging wines. Too much
oxygen will age wine prematurely and too
little oxygen will retard the aging process.
With natural cork, there is no consistency
of how much oxygen will get into the bottle
for two reasons. First, a little bit of oxygen
enters a natural cork when it's placed
in a bottle. Second, the small holes and
crevices that occur naturally in cork hold
oxygen. While we purchase the highest
quality corks with the smallest crevices,
the amount of oxygen that seeps into the
wine through natural cork is inconsistent,
and that means inconsistency in the wine.
Cork holes can also lead to leakage of wine
during cellaring. Diam corks are made
of natural cork pieces that are treated-
basically the same extraction process used
in producing decaffeinated coffee-and
pressed back together using beeswax and
plant-based binders. The binding process
creates corks with identical, tiny oxygen
levels that flow from within and through the
cork, so every wine bottled ages at the same
rate, and there's minimal chance of leakage
during aging. Diam also controls how much
oxygen will live within the cork and allows
winemakers to choose the level they want.
4
22 THE GRILLING ISSUE
Respected peers who have used Diam
products for years strongly endorsed their
lack of cork taint, as well as the consistency
of ageability for the wine.
When I was encountering issues with finding clean
cork lots from Portugal, we conducted a competitive
tasting of Jordan Chardonnay against a number of top
Burgundy producers in 2017. Tastings like this are
typical at Jordan, but what I discovered while uncorking
the bottles was not: The majority of the French wines
were closed with Diam. And these were iconic
producers, such as Domaine Faiveley, William Fevre,
Olivier LeFlaive and Louis Jadot, to name a few.
It gave me pause. Top domestic winemakers, such
as Shafer in Napa Valley and Ramey Wine Cellars
in Sonoma County, have used Diam for several years,
but I didn't realize the French had also adopted
this new technology. Around the same time, I was
among a group of winemakers asked to present an
aged wine and a current release vintage to sommeliers.
Sonoma-Cutrer, Ramey and Jordan were the three
producers presenting chardonnays, and David
Ramey focused his entire presentation on the benefits
of Diam closures. Ramey explained that all bottles
inside a 10-year-old case of Ramey Chardonnay sealed
under natural cork tasted drastically different, while
the current release bottles under Diam tasted the same.
At this point, I knew a trial was imperative.

Jordan Wine Country Table - Vol. 16, 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Jordan Wine Country Table - Vol. 16, 2021

Table of Contents
Jordan Wine Country Table - Vol. 16, 2021 - Cover1
Jordan Wine Country Table - Vol. 16, 2021 - Cover2
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Jordan Wine Country Table - Vol. 16, 2021 - Cover3
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https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/eloquent/wine_country_table_2022vol17
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/eloquent/wine_country_table_2021vol16
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/eloquent/wine_country_table_2020vol15
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/eloquent/wine_country_table_2019vol14
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com