Green Point puts crown seal on more sparkling wines

Australian sparkling wine producer Chandon has just expanded its Green Point range released under crown seal. The move follows the successful release of its ZD 2003 four years ago under this seal and is designed to avoid some of the problems associated with cork.

Chief Executive Officer Tony Jordan told the UK Wine Show, ‘There continues to be a problem of cork taint in sparkling wine and there continues to be a problem of uneven ageing under cork with sparkling wine. Having seen the uptake and the acceptance with consumers of screwcaps, we just said, look, we’ve got to do something with sparkling wine and the crown seal is the obvious seal rather than a cork.’

This is because all sparkling wine – even champagne – ferments and is yeast-aged under crown, so the company already had the equipment in place, as well as experience of using them. And as far as the ageing of bottles is concerned, Chandon is pleased with the results. Tony said, ‘We also put our ZD under cork and if you open five or six of them, they are all a little different to each other. Under the crown, we were getting quite uniform ageing and not that dissimilar to the ageing under the average cork.’

Joining the ZD Blanc de Blancs under this stainless-steel seal, which is, in effect, a beer-bottle top, are Green Point’s Vintage Brut, Vintage Brut Rosé, NV Brut and NV Rosé.