An introduction to Diam

At Le Chai I was introduced to Diam. Diam is a new cork we are using which – it is claimed – removes the risk of corked bottles.

This would be a wonderful thing. Only one thing upsets me – the Wine Merchant – more than an obviously corked bottle, and that is a not-so-obviously-corked bottle. And there are quite a few of those.

It seems to take a lifetime of sniffing at wines to be able to spot very faint cork taint. Most people don't identify it as cork taint. BUT THEY DON'T LIKE THE WINE. The cork has damaged it. Hence we merchants get accused of selling not very good wine when its the fault of the cork.

I am a vocal supporter of the cork industry. I have planted cork trees. And Laithwaites is the biggest cork-recycler in Britain. The cork industry has mounted an impressive PR campaign to 'save the cork oaks'. But not quite told the full story.

Cork oaks take forty years to mature and provide a crop. So … in 1971 were they planting vast acreages of new oak forest to cope with the exponential growth to come over the next 40 years in cork-bottled wine?

No. Well I never saw it. Sure they planted some. But what they were doing mostly was finding ways of using previously large percentage of discarded cork. This involved chemical treatment which has caused us all these problems.

Finally, it seems, a better way has been found. At a price.

Anyone finding a cork marked 'Diam' (small print) in one of our bottles might be forgiven thinking we were using cheaper corks. No; more expensive. They are real, quite good cork, but it has been minced up and put back together. However it flexes well, has no bad chemicals , provides a tight fit and easy pulling.

Our winemakers like them and so far … no problemo's.