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<pre>Selcuk

The fact, as you all know is, in the case of wine the cork provides good
protection
provided that it remains moist (the bottle is kept laid).

In the wine industry the corks are pressure fitted. In common practice with
olive oil they are not. How many times have you had to get a cork screw out to
open a bottle of oil? Some do, the overwhelming majority do not. Typically,
the cork is a hand-pressure closure and, in most instances, a lessor grade cork
is used than the pressure corks. The latter have to stand up to greater force
of course.

I suppose we could look as pressure corking but that's yet another expense. Or
perhaps move over to plastic "corks". In either event, unless said cork is
pressure fitted then oxidisation will occur. Because the oil lacks wetness, as
you point out, the cork ultimately shrinks rather quickly and before the oil has
time to reach its "Best By" date. Pressure corking is also a detraction from
the consumers point of view. We expect the pleasant charade of opening a bottle
of good wine with a corkscrew but it doesn't gel with oil.

This is why we have gone to some lengths (and costs) this year to move toward a
tamper proof aluminium seal that has a built-in oil pourer. Just like the
supermarket ones. We have gone one further step however and added a shrink seal
over the top of same. Looks good.

We have inverted both the ordinarily cork sealed bottle and the new one to test
for leakages. The cork one leaked overnight, the new one hasn't after two
months. I guess the lesson is, if one does use cork make sure it is a pressure
fitted one and even then I am not so sure.

Regards
Peter Caird
www.victorianolivegroves.com
AUSTRALIA



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