Performance. Consistency. Choice.

Diam background It doesn’t taint or scalp, there’s no bottle variation and you can choose the OTR (Oxygen Tranmission Rate). No other driven closure can make this claim. Numerous studies over the years have demonstrated that closure choice should be part of the winemaking process. It shouldn’t be left to the marketing department, however the OTR should be. DIAM is a cork-based closure that allows the winemaker to choose how they want the wine to continue to evolve. DIAM’s main benefits are that the cork has been cleaned using Supercritical CO2 and that the granulate (flour) is bound using microsphere technology. The DIAMANT process uses Supercritical CO2 to clean the cork flour. Used in many other industries including decaffeination of coffee, removal of unwanted flavors from hops for in the brewing industry, extracting specific esters for the perfume industry and many others. Supercritical CO2 cleaning is a proven process. To reach the supercritical phase the pressure and temperature parameters are adjusted until the CO2 has the properties of both a liquid and a gas enabling DIAM to remove all the 2,4,6-trchloroanisole (TCA) to below detectable limits. Initially the complete removal of TCA was the goal but through the R&D program it became clear that they were able remove not only the TCA, but over 150 other compounds leaving the cork totally neutral. The other issue that this level of cleaning revealed was that simply making a clean ‘cork’ was not enough – one was still left with a closure that gave inconsistent results due to the very nature of cork bark. To complete the jigsaw DIAM had to be able to control the OTR while keeping the valuable mechanical properties of cork. DIAM, a technical closure uses microspheres added to the cork flour to enable an almost limitless spectrum of OTR.

Cork cells do not allow oxygen to pass through them. When a natural punched cork is placed in a bottle it is the fissures, inherent in the cork bark, that allow the oxygen to migrate into the bottle. DIAM removes this natural inconsistency by grinding the cork into uniformly sized particles. These are then mixed with Microspheres before being molded and baked. Microspheres, prior to baking, have a similar consistency to talcum powder but when baked they expand to fill the gaps between the granular. To provide the spectrum of OTRs DIAM simply changes the proportion of Microspheres. The irony is that there is more cork in a DIAM than in a natural cork. The combination of Supercritical CO2 and Microspheres provides DIAM with the ultimate ability to provide a driven closure that doesn’t taint or scalp, provides complete consistency and offers the winemaker a spectrum of OTR. The winemaker can now make the wine and the marketing department can now choose whether the closure is in or on. Today, wine brands including Johanneshof Cellars, Sandihurst, Casella, Orlando, Mount Mary, Jadot, Hugel and Tesco have all embraced DIAM as the closure of choice for their wines. The production capacity of DIAM corks at the CEA facility in San Vincente de Alcantara, Spain, is at around 800 million per year, but this figure will almost double once the new DIAM production plant is completed in 2011. Upon completion, the technical cork facility will be the biggest supercritical plant in the world. For media inquiries in the New Zealand., please contact Vinko Rakich at [email protected] or +64 9411 9176. Please visit www.diam-cork.com or www.newpro.co.nz for more information on the company.

Performance. Consistency. Choice.

Factsheet Cork Availabilities DIAM

3

2 Length: 38mm or 44mm Diameters: 23.5mm or 24.5mm

5

Length: 38mm or 44mm Diameters: 23.5mm or 24.2mm

Length Available: 38mm, 44mm, or 47 mm Diameters: 23,5mm or 24,2mm. For other dimensions: please contact us

Characteristics of DIAM Closure • Undetectable levels of releasable TCA on an individual cork basis, every single cork ( < LQD Limit of Quantifiable Detection .5 mg/L by GC/MS) • Absolute mechanical homogeneity meaning no variance bottle to bottle • Perfect and uncomplicated insertion at bottling • Rapid dimensional recovery (90% up to 97% in 30 seconds) • No leakage • No dust risk • Easy extraction, equivalent to that of a conventional punched cork

DIAM Closures offer the positive aspects of natural cork without the risk of taint • An elastic, natural and ecological raw material • A favorite with consumers 70% of consumers prefer a cork closure for wine • Ecologically sensitive, recycled cork materials used to make the closures

DIAM Corks are technological closures that are manufactured from cork and treated by the exclusive DIAMANT process (eradication of 2,4,6 – TCA by supercritical CO2 treatment). What is Supercritical CO2 Process? • Any chemical substance can exist in either a solid, liquid or gaseous phase, depending on temperature and pressure. • Between the liquid and the gaseous states, a fourth state exists: the supercritical state. • This same process is used to extract bitter compounds (lupine) from hops for beer, remove caffeine from tea and coffee, to extract aromas from flowers for perfume.

For More Information: www.diam-cork.com

Press Contact: Vinko Rakich [email protected]

Performance. Consistency. Choice.

Client list UNITED STATES Cameron Hughes Cannonball Chateau Potelle Cougar Crest Winery Freemark Abbey Geyser Peak Girard Winery Hanna Winery Kendall Jackson Kunde Winery Langtry Estate Martin Ray Winery Precept Brands Ray’s Station Stonestreet Summers Winery Tolosa

UNITED KINGDOM Marks & Spencer Sainsbury’s Tesco NEW ZEALAND Escarpment Tasman Bay Johanneshof Cellars Domaine Georges Michel Sandhurst Winery

FRANCE Bouchard Chateau Carignan Chateau Lanessan Chateau Hanteillan Chateau Kimberly CVBG Duboeuf Dourthe Kressman Hugel Henri Maire Jadot Maison des Maines Moillard Trimbach

AUSTRALIA Casella Kooyong Mt. Mary Port Phillip Estate Rymill Debortoli Bleasdale SOUTH AFRICA Distell Rupert Rothschild

Mytik DIAM Clients: Mytik DIAM is OENÉO’s technological cork solution for sparkling wines.

AUSTRALIA Chandon Taltarni Clover Hill Orlando Grant Burge Debortoli

FRANCE Ayala Besserat de Bellefond Billecart Salmon Chanoine Gosset Henri Maire Lanson Martel Moët & Chandon Perrier Jouët Taittinger Pommery

UNITED STATES Chandon USA Mumm Napa Valley Piper Sonoma Korbel Drag Me

Performance. Consistency. Choice.

Client Testimonials Georges Michel, Domaine Georges Michel Wine Estate One of the real concerns over alternative closures and one of the reasons Domaine Georges Michel has not chosen screw caps is that fine wines need to age and develop in the bottle over time. Part of this process is a very small ingress of oxygen through the cork allowing the wine to expand and age successfully. Screw caps in particular don’t allow this to happen and the wines age in atypical ways and can be affected by “reduction” (off smell). Corks and DIAM corks allow a small amount of gaseous exchange resulting in the typical aging characteristics we are all familiar with. DIAM has been rigorously tested, technically certified by independent laboratories worldwide and has won international acclaim and awards. Many of the world’s most respected still and sparkling wines are now sealed with DIAM. We’re sure you’ve heard of Moet & Chandon, Louis Jadot, Tyrrell’s, Tempus Two, and of course our winery. In fact over 500 wineries in Australia and New Zealand have chosen DIAM to seal their premium wines and the number is growing daily. Bottle variations are also no longer a topic of conversation at the dinner table for wines sealed with DIAM. We have chosen to use DIAM to ensure each bottle is delivered to you in the best possible condition for your enjoyment.

type of cork, (which is termed) “agglomerated,” has been used for some time. All Champagne corks use this technology. The two things that make DIAM superior are that the cork has been neutralized flavor wise and that the plastic binding material has been designed to breathe slightly so that the tiniest amount of oxygen flows through the cork and helps the wine age. With this said, Tolosa Winery has now made the decision, which seems so clear to protect our product, that all vintages beginning in 2008 will be with a DIAM cork, except for our screwcap closures.”

Fortress Vineyards We have chosen to use the DIAM cork for our closure. DIAM is made from the “noble” component of natural cork treated with the patented Diamant process, a supercritical carbon dioxide process which basically eliminates TCA contamination of the wine and over 150 trace elements. Multiple tests verify that the DIAM cork is completely neutral to wine which means it will not alter the taste. It also maintains consistency in terms of permeability and decreases variability between bottles. It retains its shape well to prevent leakage and it is easily removable. In addition, the DIAM cork is a recyclable, renewable and biodegradable resource.

Larry Brooks, Tolosa Winery

Jim Moore, Uvaggio

“For a long time I have wished for something better than natural corks to protect the wines I made. The problems with natural cork are twofold. The first and worst is that at least 1-2% are tainted with mold flavors which gets into the wine. The second is that the porosity of corks to oxygen is variable over a three fold range, so the individual bottles of wine age at a random and unpredictable rate. For most of my thirty years as a winemaker there has been no viable alternative to natural cork. However, a few years ago a French company made some crucial improvements to an earlier product that made for a real improvement over natural corks without sacrificing any of the many good things that have made corks the standard choice for a few hundred years. The product is called DIAM and it is made by grinding up cork, stripping all of the aromas out of it and then molding it back together with polyurethane. This

“While I was very hesitant, OENEO lobbied me for a while to perform a trial with their new product, DIAM. I was very impressed by the commitment and efforts they undertook to make improvements in an agglomerated closure so I initially bottled a few dozen cases, out of curiosity and more as a favor than anything else. But there came a time when I needed to do a meaningful trial so we decided on one hundred cases. I am very impressed with the initial result. I have never liked nor used synthetic corks and have worked extensively with screw cap closures, which I do not like at all. So for me and my wines, DIAM represents a good compromise between quality, cost and ‘natural’ aesthetics. I am hopeful the ongoing QC will reveal outstanding performance.”

Performance. Consistency. Choice.

Client Testimonials Hugel & Fils

Girard Winery, Napa

After seven years of intensive internal research for alternative methods of closure, we have decided to use “DIAM” corks for an important part of our classic range of wines of the 2006 vintage. We have always observed – and this phenomenon is widely known in our profession as one of our main quality issue – that a fraction of the wines sealed with natural cork suffer from what is generally called “cork taint.” In fact, this phenomenon seems to have become more marked in recent years, and so in 1998 we began to seriously investigate ways of overcoming the problem. We studied and experimented with every different type of “cork” that existed on the market (agglomerated, treated, synthetic, 1 + 1 (composite), and screwcaps. After countless tests conducted with great rigor by Marc Hugel as well as a recent 4 day visit Oeneo’s premises in Spain we have finally selected DIAM. This type of cork uses several new techniques: Extraction of suberine (the “noble” component of natural cork) and elimination of lignine (the “woody” component) Treatment of the suberine by supercritical carbon dioxide (patented process) in order to eliminate practically all the TCA which causes the bad taste known as “cork taint”. Assembling the suberine with a binding agent to give each cork a homogeneous structure and perfect neutrality. In other words, in fact, this type of cork has a triple advantage : it is neutral to the wine (that is to say, it is not able to transmit any bad taste to the wine). Thanks to its 100% homogeneous structure, which guarantees a perfectly normal rate of evolution in the bottle, without the variations encountered previously, we are assured of optimum aromatic freshness in half-bottles of our wines. it ensures (and this is an added bonus) that every cork is identically easy to extract, in fact less strength is needed than before (about 25 kg against 20 to 40 kg for a normal cork and 45 kg for a synthetic cork!), making cork-pulling particularly “comfortable.” The DIAM cork is the result of long years of research by the Oeneo-Bouchage company, and has obtained numerous awards and gold medals at professional wine shows. For the past seven years we have tested this cork with great success, which has given us sufficient experience to make this choice with every confidence. Each “DIAM” cork that we will use will carry in addition of our traditional marking, the web address of our Internet site in order to inform our future users of the virtues of this new product.

The DIAM corks used in our wines, like traditional corks, protect the wine and promote proper aging over time. Since switching to our new corks, we have yet to have a single bottle of our wine returned due to cork taint, nor have we discovered a corked wine in the tasting room.

Jason Fisher, Cosentino Winery “At Cosentino Winery we produce more than 35 different wines and technological closures have been used with great success on various projects. We used the DIAM cork in two different bottling runs as trials with no failure of closure and no off flavors detected. We look forward to increasing our use of this closure due to the excellent results seen. This closure not only offers great price but peace of mind for our winery.”

Hennie & Celia Bosman, Sandihurst Winery “As a small winery, we pride ourselves in our classical approach to winemaking. Quality control of the highest level is essential to maintain our positioning as a premium producer. Using DIAM cork satisfies both of these non-negotiable fundamentals. Wines which are maturing beautifully on the one hand and not a single return since 2006 when we first started using DIAM on the other are all the proof we need. Combine that with being a sustainable, renewable and bio-degradable resource and it ticks all the right boxes for us.”

Warwick Foley, Johanneshof Cellars Ltd “Having used Diam corks now for several years on both our Methode traditionnelle and still wines, we are very happy with the consistency of our wines under Diam as well as the complete absence of any problems associated with normal cork”

Performance. Consistency. Choice.

5

Performance. Consistency. Choice.

Performance OTR

Dimensions

Minimum 5 years ageing potential

Length Available: 38mm, 44mm, or 47 mm Diameters: 24.2mm. Other dimensions: please contact us

DIAM is a technological closure with a patented composition, manufactured from cork and treated by the exclusive DIAMANT process (eradication of 2,4,6-TCA by supercritical CO2 treatment) validated by independent laboratories. Performance

All the positive benefits of cork

A systematically controlled (1) production batch for a releasable TCA(2) rate per closure lower than quantifiable detection limits (3)

• • • •

Consistency A closure that ensures consistency from bottle to bottle: what you create is what the customer gets – every time.

Choice Controlled and consistent permeability: choice of several permeability levels (4), suited to the specific profile of your wine. 10 sizes: 24.2mm diameter & 38mm, 44mm or 47mm length, suited to the specific profile of your bottle.

Easy opening An elastic, natural and ecological raw material A material that compliments wine A favorite with consumers

Exceptional physical and mechanical performances: • Unequalled organoleptic performances • A systematically controlled [3] production batch for a releasable TCA [1] rate per closure < QL [2] • A controlled and consistent permeability : two options[4] of permeability, depending on the profile of your wine • A consistent closure that reduces bottle variation • Perfect insertion at bottling [5] • Rapid Dimensional recovery (97% in 30 seconds) • No leakage or capillary rising [5] • No dust risk [5] [1] Guarantee per cork [2] QL : the Quantification Limit of the analytical method by gase chromatography is 0.5ng/L [3] Indicative value according to internal testing, available upon request [4] P10 (increased permeability) and P1 [5] In compliance with our bottling and storage conditions

Contact OENEO Bouchage SAS

Newpro Packaging Ltd

OENEO Bouchage SAS Espace Tech Ulrich 66400 Céret - France

Tel : +64 (0) 9411 9176 Fax : +64 (0) 9411 9172 Mob : +64 (0) 21 645 007

Tel : +33 (0)4 68 87 20 20 Fax : +33 (0)4 68 87 35 36

[email protected] www.newpro.co.nz

[email protected] www.oeneo-bouchage.com