Sainsbury's First UK Retailer to Endorse Sabate's New Cork-Based Wine Closures; Leading Retailer Announces the First Availability of Wines with the New Stopper in May.

Lifestyle Editors/Food Writers

NAPA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2004

U.K. retailer Sainsbury's says it "found the solution to corked wine" in a new cork-based closure and will begin offering wines that are stopped with the closure in May. The closure, Sabate's new technical corks treated with a TCA-extraction process called "Diamond," will first be used on Sainsbury's Australian Kingston Estate Petit Verdot.

"This good news comes on the heels of a very positive report card from the AWRI," said Sabate USA President Eric Mercier. "And, our testing with wineries here in the U.S. is going really well."

According to a Sainsbury's press release, the retailer "has worked with the cork manufacturer Sabate for two years to develop natural cork based closures which go through a process of carbon dioxide extraction to 'clean' them (i.e., to levels undetectable by current state-of-the-art equipment) of TCA, protecting the wine from cork taint."

Mercier said trials are in progress with many U.K. retailers. "Our prototype closures are showing great promise in a 15-month trial involving many of the U.K. wine trade's most respected palates," said Mercier.

Sainsbury's Wine Technologist Howard Winn said that though cork taint has been a problem, "80 percent of customers prefer natural cork closures. They feel that nothing compares to the pop a cork makes as it is pulled from the bottle neck."

Bill Moularadellis, the winemaker at Kingston Estate sees "Diamond" closures as the way forward. "Winemakers all over the world have lost faith in natural cork," he said. "I am hopeful that this process can answer the criticisms that have been leveled at natural cork for many years."

As part of a new and independent study, the AWRI, a world leader in wine closure studies, began testing Sabate's new closures in October 2002 along with a range of other closures. Earlier this week, Mercier reported that, after 18 months of testing, the AWRI results were excellent on all enological and organoleptic parameters, and the new Diamond closures obtained even better results than the screw cap (used as the "control") in terms of Free and Total SO2, and in terms of descriptors linked to wine reduction.

Sabate, which had planned to begin industrial production of treated corks upon completion of its own dedicated facilities in 2005, is now temporarily producing small batches of closures using the identical technology under its own strict supervision. Diamond-processed technical closures should be available in limited quantities in the U.S. by mid-year. Sabate is still adapting the supercritical CO2 process in order to treat fully natural corks.

The technology, developed jointly by Sabate in France and the Supercritical Fluids Laboratory of the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), is designed to selectively remove from raw cork material certain chemical compounds, including chloroanisoles (2,4,6 Trichloroanisole and its precursors), that can contribute to undesirable sensory deviations in bottled wines before converting the raw material into a range of cork closure products.

Sabate's new 27,000 sq. ft. cork treatment facility is under construction in San Vicente De Alcantara, Province of Extremadura, Spain. The new plant will treat up to 2,500 tons of raw cork annually. The plant is expected to be fully operational mid-2005 and will expand as demand grows for the specially treated closures.

About Sabate

Sabate USA was founded in 1995 and is based in Napa, California. The company is a subsidiary of France-based Sabate S.A.S., the closure division of OENEO, a global leader in supplying value-added products to winemakers worldwide. Founded in 1939, Sabate ranks as the world's second largest supplier of cork wine closures and is engaged in all wine-producing countries. In addition to natural corks, sparkling wine corks and a cork-based stopper for liquor and spirits, Sabate is now engaged in pursuing a full line of wine closure solutions. The OENEO Group of companies is also the world's largest barrel supplier (Seguin Moreau and Radoux brands) and is listed on the Paris Stock Exchange (ISIN code 0000052680).